Dan – Page 21 – Marginally Clever Robots

News

Weekly summary ending 2019-03-01

2019-03-01 Dan

Hey, gang! Here is what we worked on in the last week, where we are heading next, and how you can join us.

Makelangelo whiteboard hooks

The hooks for mounting a Makelangelo on a whiteboard that Jacob designed are now on Thingiverse. If you can’t print one or you’d like it included with your purchase of a robot, get a set of hooks today.

Makelangelo drawing on glass

Now that the DaGhizmo pen holder is standard I’ve been playing around with drawing on glass. Check it out! I used a pink EXPO Brightstick.

If you’re feeling a little left out because you have an older pen holder made of acrylic or wood, fear not! We have your new pen holder ready.

Sixi Robot knolling

We took the robot apart after some motion testing to inspect the hidden parts. We want to be certain everything inside is good. Turns out the shaft couplers were giving us grief (again). Our next version of the collars won’t even have a split on one side. Instead they’ll be friction fit with a set screw that goes into a hole on the side of each tube.

Sixi Robot electronics enclosure

We have had great fun with our electronics enclosure. I’ve only tried to make one enclosures before. We used an off the shelf enclosure that has nubs in the bottom. The idea is to design a plate that has one set of holes for the electronics and one set of holes that match a few of the nubs. Even when we followed the Original Equipment Manufacturer’s (OEM) data sheet, we still couldn’t get our laser cut plate to line up with the nubs. That left everyone here scratching their heads.

Jacob and Scott have finished their internship with us. 😭 With luck we can have them back over spring break or the summer. I say with luck and what I mean is “with luck the Sixi is done”. There’s already so much to do here but that is where I want to delegate them, working on the new bleeding edge of technology with the new hotness.

I would write more but I have to get back to it! There’s firmware to update for the Sixi and components to reassemble. Subscribe to my channels and buy some of the good stuff so we can keep being awesome, k? K. Peace out.

Weekly summary ending 2018-02-22

2019-02-22 Dan

Hey, gang! Here is what we worked on in the last week, where we are heading next, and how you can join us.

Makelangelo Update Released!

Makelangelo Software v7.20.1 and Makelangelo firmware v9.0.0 are out now. This is a major change to the firmware which rewrites all the logic for planning movement, especially with acceleration and deceleration. If you upgrade one then you must upgrade both. We have written a guide to help you with updating the Makelangelo firmware that should make this easy for you.

One of the side effects is that the old and busted steps/min values have been replaced with new hotness mm/s and mm/s/s. I am getting good drawing results with top speed=90mm/s, drawing speed=60mm/s, and acceleration=300mm/s/s. See for yourself.

Makelangelo 5 at Science World Vancouver, Feb 20, 2019

Wednesday the power was out for a scheduled electrical upgrade and we used the time at Vancouver’s Telus World of Science to take some better photographs and video. I hope that with this I can finally make a presentation pitch video that does the machine sweet vengeful justice.

Fun fact: A large sheet of acrylic has enough static cling and surface tension to hold an A0 sheet of paper without tape.

Makelangelo on a white board

I find that the Makelangelo suction cups work great on glass …and not so great on a class room white board. I tasked Jacob with designing a new system and he went through several rapid prototype iterations.

In house we’ve moved on a few versions from what you just saw and have an even better design. When it’s ready we’ll offer it in the store and on Thingiverse.

I should also mention Scott has been doing a great job of manufacturing Makelangelos and documenting process. I don’t mention enough how good he’s doing (very!) at a job some people would look down on. Documentation is hard, yo! He’s even inventing better ways to make the machines faster with less futzing.

Sixi motors arrived

Jin was taking some much earned time off this week, during which time the motors and the power supply we ordered finally arrived. As I write this he’s doing electrical tests and torque tests and making sure that everything is to spec.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town,

In anticipation of our new CNC machine arriving in ~6 weeks I’ve been taking night classes to learn how to be a better machinist. Here’s a funny from my last session:

The next week is Jacob & Scott’s last week of internship. Pizza party? Pizza party. If everything goes well with the testing we should be installing the new motors into Sixi this week. I can wait, but I don’t want to… 😭

Join Us

Get the latest Sixi Master Assembly for Fusion360 on Patreon
OR
Buy anything in our store and mention ‘The Fusion link’ in the notes field to get a link by email.

You can use this file to build your own copy of the robot arm. Put that 3D printer you bought to use – Make it your own! Share your creation with others! That’s what open source is about. If you build one we would love to share it with others. I am actively seeking talent… show me what you got.

As always, follow our daily progress on our Instagram or see our older stuff on Youtube.

You can do us a huge favor by watching just 2 minutes of video on our Youtube channel. We have 44k subscribers on IG and we need 100k minutes watched to monetize our channel. If you all watch 2 minutes of video that’s 88k minutes done, finito, in the bank, sayanora. So Like, Share, Subscribe! We thank you.

Lastly, thank you for your likes, subscribes, comments, and purchases. You keep the lights on and the mood high so we can keep working on awesome things that will help the planet.

3D Printing Makelangelo Robot Arm

Weekly summary ending 2018-02-15

2019-02-15 Dan

Hey, gang! Here is what we worked on in the last week, where we are heading next, and how you can join us.

Welcome Jacob & Scott

We have new interns! Our factory grows! Mwhahahahaha~! I get these two bright young men for three whole weeks and I am working them tirelessly to breaking beneath the unforgiving whip of industry on every project that we’ve been saving as “great if we had more unfiltered evil time”.

Among their first tasks has been converting some of the STL files we use into Fusion 360 versions so that we can tweak them; testing parts they designed;

practicing their maniacal laughter; and repairing a 3D printer that has an unfortunate accident…

New Dozuki Process Control

Scott & Jacob have also been building new documentation for our team, DIYers, and new users. Documenting our process means more control and better quality. I love Dozuki ever since I saw it used by Prusa Printers. Check out the start of our documentation.

Sixi Robot Arm Anchor and Shoulder First Look

Yes! The first version of the anchor and the shoulder have been birthed from the primordial ooze printed. As soon as omc-stepperonline.com come back from Lunar New Years and ship our parts (we expect delivery ~the 20th) then we’ll be putting it together and finally conquering the planet making it move.

Get Educated

I’m back in school to up my game!

First off, Mandarin. I keep ordering fancy parts from China and I hear all the best deals are on chinese-only sites like Taobao. It is easier to convince people that robots are the future if I speak their language. One in six people understands Mandarin so it’s the obvious choice.

Second off, professional Machinist courses. I’ve signed up to take CNC lathe work at BCIT and their classroom is a machine porn wet dream.

Next week we have a scheduled power outage for another electrical upgrade to the super ray. I plan to spend the time at Vancouver’s Science World wreaking havoc filming footage for a new Makelangelo video. We don’t plan to be there more than once for this, so I’m drawing schemes storyboards for the first time. Nice!

Join Us

Get the latest Sixi Master Assembly for Fusion360 on Patreon
OR
Buy anything in our store and mention ‘The Fusion link’ in the notes field to get a link by email.

As always, follow our daily progress on our Instagram or see our older stuff on Youtube.

Lastly, thank you for your likes, subscribes, comments, and purchases. You keep the lights on and the mood high so we can keep working on awesome things that will help the planet.

Special thanks to Bernie at Coast Precision CNC that saw my broken printer Instagram post and offered me one of his spare thermistors. We were back up and running the same day! Excellent.

News

Weekly summary ending 2018-02-08

2019-02-08 Dan

Hey, gang! Here is what we worked on in the last week, where we are heading next, and how you can join us.

The business of making

The CNC machine has been ordered and everything is now in place – the Vending Machine is gone to make room and electrical in the workshop has been upgraded in preparation. I asked for the invoice two days ago and have yet to receive it /_/

恭喜發財! gōng xǐ fā cái! Or in other words, we are still waiting on parts to arrive from our suppliers. My understanding is that most of china takes a week off and goes home, much like western xmas/new years.

Also! Somehow last week’s summary was left as a draft all week. It has been posted. Oops.

Makelangelo v7.20.0

I have spent most of the last week upgrading the Makelangelo firmware on Github. Previous all speed control was in a mysterious “steps per second” and acceleration was … well, I was faking something that worked good enough. Because MF runs on all our robots, I tried to use it for the Sixi arm and discovered that the fake acceleration was no longer good enough. It has now been much improved! Steps per second has been replaced with mm/s and mm/s/s. Acceleration is much more sane. The changes can be installed on any existing Makelangelo 5 robot. (Maybe a v3? Someone try it and let me know!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN5tKVSzpnA

And then just a few hours later I had it solved:

The Makelangelo Software has also been improved to match. I’ve opened and closed at least a dozen bugs this week. Speaking of which! I have finally found a great technique to fill in solid regions of closed shapes. The secret is to use the Eggbot Inkscape plugin from our friends at Evil Mad Scientist Labs. Check this Spongebob, which my nephew says is 💯.

View this post on Instagram

#spongebob on the #makelangelo #art #robot A1 size in 1h27m? #plotter #drawing #ink #sharpie #poster #mural

A post shared by Marginally Clever Robots (@imakerobots) on Feb 8, 2019 at 11:09am PST

The code for the Makelangelo is also used in other robots like the Stewart Platform. (The firmware is a bit like the One Ring, it rules them all.

Sixi

The only word on the Sixi this week is that Jin’s math has calculated the estimated speed of the robot. At the shoulder we expect, under ideal conditions, to sweep the work area while carrying the payload in about three seconds. So I guess we’re Hangin’ Tough. Meanwhile Jin has been deep into designing the elbow, the shoulder, and the base.

Next week, assuming there are no bug reports on Github, I will be releasing the updated Makelangelo firmware and Makelangelo software for everyone. You can get it now and try it yourself here for firmware and here for software. Note these are the raw files for programmers, so some massaging will be needed.

Join Us

Get the latest Sixi Master Assembly for Fusion360 on Patreon
OR
Buy anything in our store and mention ‘The Fusion link’ in the notes field to get a link by email.

As always, follow our daily progress on our Instagram or see our older stuff on Youtube.

Lastly, thank you for your likes, subscribes, comments, and purchases. You keep the lights on and the mood high so we can keep working on awesome things that will help the planet. Special thanks this week to EMSL and to James Bruton for his tips on Youtube filming

News Robot Arm

Weekly summary ending 2018-02-01

2019-02-08 Dan

Hey, friends! Here is what we worked on in the last week, where we are heading next, and how you can join us.

Last week I mentioned that I’m trying to sell a vending machine to make room for a CNC metal cutting machine. The CNC quote came back at >$40k CAD.

As you probably know by now, we’ve been working on a robot arm. Last week we ended off with a new cycloidal gearbox. Well this week we printed two more and installed them.

We’ve had many challenges dealing with friction in our power transmission. Bevel gears have been a real problem – There’s no perfect solution to make bevel gears and some of the tutorials we found online were flat out wrong… which we figured out only after following the tutorials.

There are, in fact, three popular ways to make bevel gears.

Once we had a better understanding of how to make bevel gears correctly, it only took three tries to get the gears perfectly tuned on our printers. With that out of the way we can finally show our three motors working together to move the first three joints of the robot arm.

Fun fact! The joints and motors work as a differential: one motor is needed to move the hand, but it takes two working together to turn the wrist, and three working together to turn the ulna.

I am currently deep into the Makelangelo firmware, trying to solve a mystery that should improve speed across all our robots.

Jin is working on the math for our motors. There is an ideal speed (in RPM) to get best torque, and from that ideal we can calculate what Sixi’s actual speed will be. We didn’t know earlier because the priority was strength and accuracy. Fast, Strong, Precise: pick two!

How you can join us

Get the latest Sixi Master Assembly for Fusion360 on Patreon
OR
Buy anything in our store and mention ‘The Fusion link’ in the notes field to get a link by email.

As always, follow our daily progress on our Instagram or see our older stuff on Youtube.

Lastly, thank you for your likes, subscribes, comments, and purchases. You keep the lights on and the mood high so we can keep working on awesome things for you.