> > Possibly too much hassle for your case, unless you find a similar 
> > setup running and learning about it's advantages/failing.
> 
> This would definitely be interesting :)
> 
> > I asked about it, and was told the 'getting the grease back 
> out' bit 
> > could be fun.
> 
> I thought they might have a bigger hole in the cylinder that 
> only gets opened then. But probably this happens too rarely 
> for them to spend even that on it.
> 
> Gerhard


I got interested in cable drive when thinking of building a CNC router.
Cable was cheap, fast, needed smaller motors and fairly accurate with the
light loads it needed.  Basically a large flatbed plotter, which are cable
as well.  The test rig I built worked very well, far better than the
threaded rod version.

I'm not sure how it would scale up (bigger load in your case).  As you know,
double any variable and the amount of aggravation goes up four-fold.  You'd
need to build a test rig.  At it's simplest, it's a motor with a (long) worm
gear, some steel cable (even thin stuff can handle a few hundred kilos) and
a pulley.  I do need to finish grinding some mirrors...

For the 'dozers, the grease came out just like you thought.  Open a valve,
and out it squirts.  What a fun job that would be.  Happens fairly
regularly, the larger machines (like in mines) run almost non-stop (easily
22 hours a day), and some enviroments (sand, coal etc) are quite harsh.
Much time and effort is spent trying to make tracks, buckets etc last
longer.  Interesting stuff.  I could ask if they have any spare engines
around, would a 16-cyclinder 46-litre diesel be ok?  :)

Tony

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