This week we truely got started on the braking on the golf cart. We started off the week getting some numbers on the braking force. This was quite entertaining as it basically entailed us driving the golf cart and slamming on the brake as hard as we can, while there is a bathroom scale on the pedal. From this I gathered that I would really prioritize speed of the actuator over force. This being said I also gathered that I definitly needed a minimum actuator force somewhere between 50lbs and 75lbs. After lots of searching for cost effective solutions, I finally found the actuator that I wanted to use.

Linear Actuator
This is the linear Actuator that I chose, it has a 2 inch stroke and can push about 56lbs of force at about 1.3 inches per second

Once I downloaded the 3D model I was able to start making the brackets that will attach the actuator to the pedal and frame. I’m not set on how I want to manufacture these because bending them might be impossible, but milling them might be a bit of a challenge.

Bracket CAD
This is the bracket I have so far. I’m not in love with him because I think it might not be strong enough, but now I will run some finite element analysis to see if it actually strong enough.