Advice on Technical model I am building

Hi,
A couple of weeks ago I started working on an idea which I have had for a while of a model truck with a lifting arm like what is used to lift large commercial bins. So far I have the truck built and the arm working but not 100% as well as what I would like, the problem I have is with getting the arm to move as far as what I would like and with locking the bin once it is loaded on.

Does anybody on here have much experience with technical gears and building gear boxes? I can upload some photos if that will help.

Paul

I'll help if I can Paul, so please post some photo's.

Bodville wrote:I'll help if I can Paul, so please post some photo's.

Thanks, I will take some photos tomorrow and see how well I can explain what my problem seems to me.

Paul

Here are some images Any advice or ideas would be great.

The truck in it's "driving state"


Bin lifting


The first problem, the bin goes almost 90 degrees when being loaded / unloaded before it starts to touch the ground and go flat.


The second problem, when uploaded it goes too far back from the back of the truck, the ones I have seen in real life stay much closer to the back of the truck when being unloaded.


How I am using gears to do this.


Rear gear - top view.


Rear gear - bottom view.

I had to do some searching for images around the www as I rarely see trucks like this and couldn't remember how it worked.
The problem appears to be the anchor point of the arm is too far back.
It should attach to the truck just in front of the rear wheels. That way when the arm is raised it will slide along the back of the truck. When the arm is pointing straight up almost the entire skip should be off the back.
The dimensions of the arm look a bit out, try making the main part of the arm shorter (which you will need to do if it's attached to the truck further up) and make the upper section with the hook, longer.
The best way to get real life models right is to look at lots of photo's. Hope that helps. Good luck with it.

Bodville wrote:I had to do some searching for images around the www as I rarely see trucks like this and couldn't remember how it worked.
The problem appears to be the anchor point of the arm is too far back.
It should attach to the truck just in front of the rear wheels. That way when the arm is raised it will slide along the back of the truck. When the arm is pointing straight up almost the entire skip should be off the back.
The dimensions of the arm look a bit out, try making the main part of the arm shorter (which you will need to do if it's attached to the truck further up) and make the upper section with the hook, longer.
The best way to get real life models right is to look at lots of photo's. Hope that helps. Good luck with it.

Thanks for the ideas and advice, I made some changes last night after looking at some of these types of trucks on the internet and I think it works much better now. I will post some photos up later on.

Paul