Powerful robotic arm

[maddox]

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.

[maddox]

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.

[ewan]

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

[tunna]

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