Pneumatic pressure controller


When using a motorized pump to drive pressure into a pneumatic system, a drawback is that when the pneumatic functions are not used, the pressure keeps building up, putting strain on both the pneumatic components and the motor.

It's possible to couple a pneumatic actuator to a PF switch in order to automatically shut-off the motor when the pressure gets too high, but this approach typically uses strings to create the force that the actuator needs to work against, and I don't like to use strings.
So in my pneumatic crane truck, instead of strings I'm using the weight of the battery that drives the motor/pump. Once enough pressure builds up to allow the small actuator to lift the heavy battery, the vertical motion activates a PF switch that turns off the motor. Once pressure drops (because it's being used by pneumatic functions) the battery falls and the motor/pump restarts automatically.

Note that it's been designed for Lego pneumatic components. I've observed that the equivalent MK actuator has less strength than the Lego one, so without adjustments, it might never be able to lift the battery.


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