new suspect...

I didn't get much work done on Sunday, but today I decided to take on these split clamps again. After drilling out one of the screws that had broken off in the clamp, I got everything back together and the clamps seem to be doing much better.

I was starting to get excited that I might actually make some progress. I decided I should test the system and it didn't take long to notice that the feet were moving way too much. I checked the clamps again.. and then raised the center leg and I saw my new nemesis...

My idea to use this flat bar and just a hole in the pipe is apparently not a good idea. I did my test again and the pipe was clearly moving.. not the clamps.


I pulled out the bolt and as you can see from this terrible picture.. the bolt is now bent. Its not bent by much, but its enough that the feet were flopping around a good inch or two. Any play down there at the pipe translates to a lot of movement at the feet.


I might have just used to much weight on everything, but this is actually why I was doing the tests... is this stuff going to hold up when my droid weighs ~130lbs?

I put my tools down after discovering this problem, and plan to take a day to think about how to lock the pipe to a fixed position relative to the frame.