The design above consists of a gear that also serves as a socket.  The nut head sits in the middle of the gear instead of a shaft.  On the leading and trailing edges of the gear teeth are raised surfaces that sit against the bushing.  This can be seen in the side view of the gear.  This gear is driven by a pinion which is supported by bearings and connected to the motor drive shaft.

The key dimension restricting this design is the thickness limitation.  The idea of the gear doubling as a socket was supposed to help overcome the length limitation, however this provides very little advantage because of the need for the gear/socket to fit in the cylinder cover pocket and then be able to slide the nut out.

The figure above portrays three more brainstorming ideas. The first shows a motor attached to a wrench that would allow a socket wrench to be placed around the nut and spin in hopes to spin off the loose nut. A major downfall with this design is making it fit the design constraints and fit the space.

            The second shows teeth on the nut so that a gear can be hooked up directly to the nut to spin it off. A good part of this design would be that a gearing system could be created to produce the needed torque. A negative part would be that the nut might not be strong enough to withstand the torque that is put on it. Space constraints and if the nut would be allowed to be modified based on requirements also need to be considered with this idea too.

            The final idea shows an idea that is very similar to the final design which is placing a socket directly on the nut. The socket would have teeth on the outside of it which could then have a gear placed alongside it with the needed gear sizing to produce enough torque to spin off the nut.

 Another design idea, called the Socket Wrench design,  is similar to an air powered socket wrench.  It has an open-ended wrench design with “teeth” used to hook onto the nut.  The “teeth” are on a gear train rotates through the u-shaped part of the drawing.  As the gear train moves, the nut will be loosened. 

Final Design

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The final design consists of four main groups of components. 

1. A battery operated power tool. This power tool has a chuck that can be used to attach an output shaft. 

2. Roller chain sprocket.

3. The offset shaft. The offset shaft has a socket attached to one end.

4. Four bearings needed to support the two different shafts. 

 

All four main groups of components will be contained in housing or casing to protect them. This housing is constructed of molded plastic.

Below are prototype models.