Author Topic: Telescopic linear slide forearm, based on a fire-engine-telescopic-ladder, CC0  (Read 6484 times)

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Offline libralectTopic starter

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I have to protect this design from patenting by another company, so I'd like to make it open-source and free to copy. Has this been already built? I don't know.

Telescopic rail slides are the same kind of system used on fire-engine-ladders from the 1920's, invented to save fire victims from tall buildings, kitchen and factory drawers from the 1950's and pallet loading forks from the 80s, tiny ones can carry 120 kilos, they are very strong and low cost.

The differences compared to articulated arms are lower precision of about 0.5 mm, stronger force at a lower cost, environmental resilience to sand and rain, easier maintenance, no extreme precision gears and robot alloys which are expensive.


This is a pallet loader, the idea is to use one on a robot arm for gardening, which needs low cost, environmental resistance, rain resistance using polyurethane roller bearings and wheels and not special robot alloys which are amazingly hard and humidity sensitive.

The telescopic linear rail slide is the forearm of the robot, hinged on a shoulder, it uses timing belts, and steel or rubberized roller bearings. it's kindof a drawer slide.




This robot can push-pull 25 kilos and lift 12 kilos, which is a high force for $3000 of generic motors and gears, however it is 10x less precise and has less axial fluidity.

The only gears that carries major weight on this robot is the shoulder gears. it is a typical shoulder articulation from a normal robot and it's fixed on the pole that pivots on the base bearing, so it's easier to design than an elbow or a wrist. I'm thinking the cost of this system is only 1/2 of an articulated arm or a scara of the same physical strength. The motors and gears on this kind of design can use generic stepper motors and they are easier to design and seal than scara or articulated robots.

Kitchen drawers also use roller bearings, it's a 3 stage cascade driven by one motor with rubber timing belts.





if it's simple enough for the 1930's and has forked into various other technologies, it could be good to test for strong reach cheap robot arms.

« Last Edit: September 19, 2023, 08:24:31 am by libralect »
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Offline MarkT

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I'm reminded of the way they launched the deck sections of the Millau viaduct - quite some engineering!

For smaller robot drawer-slides are a cheap way to achieve this if you aren't looking for precision.
 


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