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Low Cost Robot Arm

github.com

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Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#111

Post by deelly »

rini17 wrote: post #98

Why not start with something less ambitious, like low cost robot platform able to follow people and carry stuff around and avoid obstacles. No arms, I am okay using mine to put stuff on and off it. When I had leg injury and used crutches, carrying stuff around suddenly became a problem. There are many people with impaired movement. And even without that, I often misplace things and it could help there. There are plen…

> low cost robot platform able to follow people and carry stuff around and avoid obstacles.

So, basically autonomous self-driving mini vehicle. Сompanies spend billions on self-driving cars with quite limited luck.

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#112

Post by xchip »

Please stop gluing 3 servos together and claiming you built a robot :D

(servos motion is quite jerky, that is why they don't have a video showing off this "robot" operating)

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#113

Post by penjelly »

deelly wrote: post #111
rini17 wrote: post #98

Why not start with something less ambitious, like low cost robot platform able to follow people and carry stuff around and avoid obstacles. No arms, I am okay using mine to put stuff on and off it. When I had leg injury and used crutches, carrying stuff around suddenly became a problem. There are many people with impaired movement. And even without that, I often misplace things and it could help there. There are plen…

> low cost robot platform able to follow people and carry stuff around and avoid obstacles. So, basically autonomous self-driving mini vehicle. Сompanies spend billions on self-driving cars with quite limited luck.

that is because they run in a very different environment than an RC-size car in your living room would

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#114

Post by alexanderkoch »

xchip wrote: post #112

Please stop gluing 3 servos together and claiming you built a robot :D (servos motion is quite jerky, that is why they don't have a video showing off this "robot" operating)

Here are some videos of the robot moving: https://twitter.com/alexkoch_ai. The advantage of this robot arm design is that it's very lightweight. The XL330 motors are just 18g each. This makes it very suitable for teleoperation and robot learning.

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#115

Post by mportela »

7373737373 wrote: post #69

I'm surprised (or perhaps very unaware) that there doesn't seem to exist a company yet that mass produces cheap, high quality, reasonably standardized robot arms. So many things like 3D printers or CNC machines have entered the consumer/amateur level price realm, but this seems to be something still largely unexplored. Seems to have Arduino/Raspberry Pi scale potential, but I haven't heard of a name/ecosystem that po…

> cheap, high quality

Most mechanical things require you to optimize for cost or quality

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#116

Post by otikik »

Max-q wrote: post #91
greggsy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d use it to pick through and sort the massive pile of Lego my children leave behind after an Easter long weekend. Seems trivial to do identification based on the high quality corpus of block databases. Wouldn’t have to be super quick - you could just leave it running overnight. I’m sure someone’s written an interesting paper on the ideal sorting algorithm too (i.e. large things > small things vs. ‘just pick up and…

I think the easiest way to collect the Lego pieces from the floor is by using a vacuum cleaner. Then look at the sorting as a separate problem :)

We have a “Lego sheet” - just a regular bed sheet that goes on the floor before playing with Legos. When it’s time to collect, you make a “bag” with the sheet, grabbing (most of) the pieces, and then we “pour” them into the final container. The sheet goes in top of the pieces on the same container so it’s also the first thing that comes out the next time.

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#117

Post by [deleted] »

alexanderkoch wrote: post #114
xchip wrote: post #112

Please stop gluing 3 servos together and claiming you built a robot :D (servos motion is quite jerky, that is why they don't have a video showing off this "robot" operating)

Here are some videos of the robot moving: https://twitter.com/alexkoch_ai . The advantage of this robot arm design is that it's very lightweight. The XL330 motors are just 18g each. This makes it very suitable for teleoperation and robot learning.

[deleted]

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#118

Post by numpad0 »

rini17 wrote: post #98

Why not start with something less ambitious, like low cost robot platform able to follow people and carry stuff around and avoid obstacles. No arms, I am okay using mine to put stuff on and off it. When I had leg injury and used crutches, carrying stuff around suddenly became a problem. There are many people with impaired movement. And even without that, I often misplace things and it could help there. There are plen…

Bellabot[0] comes to mind, there's also a startup doing Roomba-like bot that magnetically dock to specially designed shelves. Though, they don't sell for $250, so actual Roombas and ROS mods for "hoverboard" Segway clones[3] might be more cost effective.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1hQ5YTMJEw

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdVglHOJgiA

2: https://github.com/hoverboard-robotics/hoverboard-driver/tre...

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#119

Post by LeafItAlone »

RecycledEle wrote: post #103
7373737373 wrote: post #69

I'm surprised (or perhaps very unaware) that there doesn't seem to exist a company yet that mass produces cheap, high quality, reasonably standardized robot arms. So many things like 3D printers or CNC machines have entered the consumer/amateur level price realm, but this seems to be something still largely unexplored. Seems to have Arduino/Raspberry Pi scale potential, but I haven't heard of a name/ecosystem that po…

There is a reason there is no standard hobbyist-grade robotic arm. People think they can build their own robotic arms for leas than a "real" robotic arm costs, but the do not account for wobble or repeatability. With all due respect to the person who posted a design for a robotic arm made with RC servos on HN, I would like measurements of the repeatability. Have it draw the same pattern on a piece of paper every day…

The hobbyist market is pretty forgiving of repeatability issues. The Ender 3 introduced many people (myself included) to the 3D printing world and is known for its problems.

Re: Low Cost Robot Arm

#120

Post by numpad0 »

potatoman22 wrote: post #3

I printed a robotic arm for school. Unfortunately, we weren't using a high quality enough printer, so the tolerances were off and things didn't slot together well. I'd recommend people to know the precision of their printer before setting off to build this.

I'd PSA recommend anyone just add 0.25mm fit clearance to every single mating surfaces within their designs. It's not ISO or anything compliant - somewhere between Atrocious and Enormous range and perhaps an mechanical equivalent of Python code with no __main__, but just works for me, and it should for lots of purposes.
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