More CAD and CNC

I am slowly working towards the final CAD. A huge challenge has been figuring out how to deal with the amount of torque this thing will exert when it is extended fully horizontally. The thing weighs about 30 pounds and is a little over two feet long so it exerts about 50 Newton meters of torque when fully extended. The gearbox definitely cannot handle that, so I am planning on adding a counterweight and moving the torque load to a gear instead of a thin hex shaft to mitigate this.

Some exciting news though: I have fabricated my first set of custom parts! One of my robotics mentors heard that I was building a robot and offered to help make some parts on his CNC machine. Not only does this save the hundreds of dollars it would cost to get my parts machined by a company, but I also got some hands-on experience with programming and operating the machine.

I made some plates for the turret system. I’m designing everything else to be relatively simple to make by hand, but the turret requires much more precision and is circular, which is quite hard to cut by hand on the bandsaw. That’s why I decided to get it CNCed.

Once I finish that arm design change, I will begin making some custom parts at home! I think I am going to first start with my electronics mounting panel before moving onto the arm and turret system.