I'm tasked with designing a lift system for a frame that goes around the outside of a 12" x 18" rectangular structure. Due to budgetary constraints, we don't have many choices and a pneumatic system is what we tentatively settled on.The preliminary design has four air cylinders, one at each corner, and they are plumbed through a common manifold to a single control valve. Although the frame is guided with linear bearings at each corner, I'm still worried that one of the cylinders will get ahead of the others and cause the frame to seize.After a few hours with Google and looking through several pneumatic handbooks, all I could come up with is using a pressure regulator or a flow control valve on each cylinder's inlet.What is the accepted method for synchronizing air cylinders?You shold look at hydraulic system, pneumatic will give you problems in this application, as you will have an "air spring" effect.Synchronizing air cylinders is done by means of Solenoid operated valves (in this case 3/2 way),these will either allow air to flow into the cylinders at the same moment, or allow the air to exhaust at same moment (in neither case do you have the assurance that cylinders speeds will be exactly the same. The same principle works for hydraulic (without the boucing up&down effect).

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