Category: News

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.

The box hole pattern
making sure parts fit in the box

Next

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.

Makelangelo News Robot Arm

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:

Manners really seal the deal.

Next

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.

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 💯.

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

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.

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.

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.

Next

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.

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.

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.

News

Weekly summary ending 2018-01-24

2019-01-25 Dan

Hey, friends! It’s good to be back. I thought some sunshine would chase my winter blues away, but it looks like what I really need is more robots. Here is what we worked on in the last week, where we are heading next, and how you can join us.

I reviewed Jin’s work on belt tension. He did a great job!

After that, I found I’d set my expectations too high. A shaft collar in the Tuning Fork was slipping. For more on what those words mean, see our youtube channel history. Here’s me opening the wrist to extract the shaft collar.

I found an M2 nut had stripped inside the shaft collar. The shaft collar slipping means power is not transmitted from the motor to the wrist. Attaching a gear to a tube has proven to be a real challenge for us. How would you do it?

Because I wear many hats here, sometimes I have to sit down and make our robots for customers. I make them in batches to save time.

Get it today: Our remix of DaGHizmo’s design. The Thingiverse license for DaGHizmo’s model says “attribution, non-commercial, share-alike”. In the comments on the file we asked and received an exemption permit from DaGHizmo to sell the remix. We’ve also shared our remix for everyone.

Our future Makelangelos will use this design. The older model had a semi-transparent model made of laser cut acrylic parts that were glued together. The glue would break in shipping and just one more reason why I avoid all glue in our robots. This newer model ships much better. Bonus, it holds markers and pens of more sizes than the old model. Right now the color of the parts is random but I believe we are moving towards yellow.

On closer examination I was wrong! The hole through the part shaped like a top hat is a little bit off, which presses the ring shaped piece to one side and binds the arms against the brim of the hat. Maybe someone out there can design a better plotter.

Next

Currently Jin and I are working in two different, parallel directions.

Jin is actively making progress with the gearbox. Today was his third iteration and he spent several hours testing speeds and accelerations to build a motion profile. That motion profile can be used in simulations to program the robot.

I am finishing Makelangelos for paying customers. I’d say half my time is spent in quality control on each machine. I call my nephew to come work assembling robots but he doesn’t check his phone. Too much Fortnite League. If you’re in Vancouver BC and want a couple hours on the weekend putting things together then contact us.

I’ve also been trying to sell a vending machine to make room for a CNC mill/lathe combo. Aluminum parts and faster plastic production would be a huge win for us.

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.

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.

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.