Powerful robotic arm

has anyone played with constructing any high powered robotic arms ? I presume im going to need hydraulics for it ?


Only needs to be a 2 joint model - but havent much space left in the bot

James

I work with robotic arms every day, and those use a combination of servodrives and pneumatics.
All movement is done with servos, pick up with vacuum. But for RW you can rule out hydraulics,unless you have a big budget. And pneumatics are difficult to control, most applications are piston in piston out, and nothing in between.

so im looking at geared joints ? going to be huge stress at the shoulder ?

any other options - linear actuators ?

James

Linacs are a good option. Easy to work with and reasonably strong.
And for use in RW Im afraid multijointed things like an arm have a distinct disadvantage.

If your looking at something complex then stepper motors are probably what your after (but a controller designed to take input from the motor would have to be found). You can always just use a motor everyones familiar with such as say, a bosch 750 (although something as small as an astroflight, if geared enough may provide the same torque) and you could stick a potentiometer on the end of the gearbox for feedback like Eds done on storm IIs weapon.

Two joints? I believe adam clarks robot wowot, used pneumatics on such an arm - http://www.dmachine.tv/wowot.htmlhttp://www.dmachine.tv/wowot.html

its not for RW

;)

OK cheers guys ill look around - the OWI 007 robot arm is cheap and might work well enough with some gear replacement

James

James you can buy powerful pneumatic muscles and valves, from the Shadow robotic Company in london
contact@shadow.org.uk .