A couple discoveries were made today.

#1- I noticed it was about impossible to pull from the bottom of the Archimedes pulley system and get the motor to unwind. After discussing the issue and potential causes with chatgpt for a while we figured out that the culprit is the tensioned string I put onto the output shaft of the motor to allow for snug unwinding and winding of the opposing string pair that I installed for manual turning of the motor shaft during testing. This tensioned string wrapped around the motor shaft only requires about 1lb of force to pull the motor enough to turn the motor output shaft. However, after the downgearing, to fight past that 1lb resistance to turning the motor output shaft would require 12lb of force since you have to divide the force applied at the output end by the number of downgear ratio you are at! And so after all points of friction in the pulleys and teflon tubing and the motor output shaft's magnetic cogging even while freewheeling we might be more like at 13-14lb of force required. And that is a TON of force to apply by just hand gripping fishing line. So I figured my system was just way too resistive somewhere or collectively and completely non-viable until we solved this issue! The 1lb at the motor might not seem big but it's HUGE to overcome when pulling from the backside after all downgearing. Wow. So we solved that big scare. I was very concerned and exploring alternative plans thinking we might have failed with pulleys approach before this was finally solved today. I'm so relieved. So once we remove those strings which are impeding the motor shaft from turning, we should only need a reasonable say 3lb of force on the back end of the pulley system, exerted by springs, to get the motor to unreel for joint extension back to default stance.

#2 - While exploring the aforementioned issues with trying to unwind the pulley system from the downgeared end, I began to realize the tension spring on the far side that unreels the motor and unwinds the pulley system has to be significant. I was exploring my options when an idea hit me: what if I used straight wires lashed onto the finger like a splint on the finger joint. I could put several fine spring steel straight wires parallel to eachother say .3mm in diameter wires and have them distributed as needed around the finger parallel to the finger. Then when the motor is done actively reeling in the finger to get the finger to flex, these resistive wires will be placing significant force to straighten the finger back out because they want to return to their straight state ASAP. By doing the return spring in this manner I save a TON of space since I'm putting it snugly around the joint itself and then don't have to put tension wires (a ton of them) into the forearm somewhere or w/e. I'm using space hugging so tightly to the finger that its space that seems unuseful until this idea came to me! So I pretty much deleted the volume taken by all the otherwise necessary tension spring wires if this idea works! I bought a large assortment of 40cm length spring steel wire off amazon to experiment and try out my idea. This could be epic! As a side benefit, these can act as additional support for the joint itself preventing sprains and dislocations of the bones and keeping everything snug and compact in a way that really helps support and aid the artificial ligaments I already have in place.