Week 8: Attaching the Servomotor Hub Horn to the Feeder Cover

The feeder cover is the only freely detachable part of the feeder once it is in use. As the only part of the feeder that will rotate freely the cover will need to be attached to the hub horn that rotates once it is fitted onto the servomotor. Initially the cover was attached to the hub horn by means of a ⅝" VELCRO Mini Fastener [1]. One half of the fastener was located on the hub horn, the other on the feeder cover. 

Figure 1. ⅝" VELCRO Mini Fasteners

However on testing the feeder it was discovered that each time the cover rotated, due to the unstable nature of the velcro, the cover experienced a "back-spin" effect. As the feeder is designed to be able to rotate to an exact amount of degrees, this was a problem. The solution was to remove the velcro attachment and attach the hub horn directly to the cover itself. Using hot glue, the hub horn was fixed at the centre of the plexiglass cover. This resulted in more accurate rotations and a more stable structure.

Figure 2. Feeder Cover/Servomotor Hub horn attachment