Spring steel

Description: One of the most important and precise features of the design is the compliance mechanism. All eight of the pucks will be rotated via the same timing belt, and so the position of one puck is dependent on the position of its neighbors. Even if the dimensions and placement of the pucks and rollers is designed very precisely and all eight pucks are in phase with one another (all share the same orientation angle), when the system heats or cools to the desired temperature extremes, these dimensions and relations warp, and the eight pucks become out of phase with one another. The timing belt could shrink or expand, and if one puck gets stuck against a fixed feature ("hard stop") the system would be stuck out of phase unless another component complies with these changes. Enter the Spring Steel Compliance Mechanism. The spring steel strips deflect when needed to allow belt travel to continue around the assembly even when one puck has been stopped.

Model showing where the two arrays of 3 each spring steel assemblies and middle single spring steel assembly fit into the base plate