Sean,

 Go to the Home Depot and pick up a couple Rail Stantions.  They are
 about 4" in diameter and have a 1" or so hole in the center and 4
 screw holes around the circumference.  I used two of these on a wood
 and aluminum platform that I used to hold up a "V-Beam" Antenna for
 10 meter ham use.   That was about 5 years ago, and the antenna is
 still working like a champ.   I did a little modification to them
 before I put them into service though.  I drilled and tapped an angled
 hole in the base near the center hole.  When I slid the mast through,
 I put a machine screw in the hole and engaged the mast to keep it from
 slipping.  I did this to both of them.  I put one on each side of the
 frame assembly and put them so the tapped bot holes were 180 degrees
 apart.  Bolted them into place and as I said before, they are working
 fine after 5 years or so of service.   The best part about it is they
 were only a couple of dollars each.  The tap I already had as well as
 the machine screws.   If you bought everything new, you should still be
 able to come in under 10 bucks.  Not bad I do believe.

                                                  Good luck.

                                                    Jim

  P.S.  Let us know how you make out with it.




> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to connect a drive shaft to a piece of aluminum plate. The
> way I'm attempting to do this is to pass the shaft through the plate at
> a 90 deg angle. The shaft has a keyway in it and I'm going to make the
> hole in the plate have a small tab that will fit into the keyway. I
> need to find out how much torque can be applied before the tab will
> break off. I know this probably has something to do with shear strength
> (and will involve the dimensions of the keyway, diameter of the shaft,
> properties of the aluminum, etc.) but I don't know what method to use
> to figure this out. This is only a hobby project so all I need is a
> reasonable estimate. Can anyone help me out?
>
> By the way, the project (rotating platform for the antenna of my
> weather radar project,
> http://www.rocket-roar.com/BT/wsr.html ) DOES have several PICs in it,
> so this is at least remotely connected ;-)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sean
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
> email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

--
http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body