This page illustrates the main step in fabricating the pneumatic networks. In this step, the design scheme is implemented by heat sealing the marked points on the airbag column in last step. Notice that the sealer should be configured with a proper heat-up time in one press to ensure the quality of airbags produced.
Firstly, put all the silicone tubes into the airbag column.
Inflate some air into the airbag column to ensure the tubes' free movements inside.
Temporarily seal up the airbag column by a clip.
Next, we begin the heat-sealing from the inside end.
Select a 4.5 mm tube and move it towards the end.
Fix the tube along one side of the airbag column, and heat-seal it at the red-dotted line shown in the figure below.
Seal it again at the other red-dotted line. The result is shown below.
Then, successively heat-seal the 9.5 mm tube at the four dotted lines in the figure below, and we finish a loop of airbag pairs. Then, the loop is repeated 6 times, and we seal another 4.5 mm tube at the opening end.
Now, we finish the heat sealing of the pneumatic network composed of 7 long tubes (9.5 mm) and 8 short tubes (4.5 mm). The heat-sealed airbag column can be separated into 16 chambers, and each two adjacent chambers divided by a short tube forms a pair of airbags. The two pairs in this airbag column are divided by a long tube, and each pair is to be put inside a chamber of the manipulator's frame. Thus, one airbag column containing 8 pairs in total can be just put into one line of a manipulator segment (each segment has four lines and need four airbag columns).
