Linear Delta Robot!

Archive
21

@ ianlee, Or get it to carry a inkjet print head with the right ink and you could have a direct to pcb inkjet printer.

22

I wonder what the lateral force limits are.

23

Hmm, using a spindle, technically with a “3 axis” setup, you could do probably the equivalent of a 4 axis CNC due to the tilt on the cutting head


That would be a good project to work on too.

Although a Rostock would be overkill for PCB printing, unless you want to do 2.5 or 3D PCBs :wink:

24

The head on the Rostock doesn’t tilt, it stays parallel with the bed.

If you put tilting mounts on the 3 arms, I’m not sure you’d have any control over the tilt without some sort of actuator setup. It would effectively be 3 more axes, I believe. I could be wrong here.

25

Hmmm
 You may have just touched on something significant. This could be a totally different way of achieving what SchmartBoard does :slight_smile:

26

It would be super nice for “extruding” solder paste, I believe.

27

You can make them tilt if you design one whose arm changes length.

1 Like
28

Right, but that’s 6 “axes” now instead of 3.

29

@ godefroi, True; however is is possible to make them rigid enough to mill. 3 Years ago, I did not see any delta robot’s rigid enough to mill with. They were supposed to be for light duty work only. Now that is totally changed. Now, we have to build parallel robots for milling work. We must definitely pursue this goal.

30

I agree this is a great goal, however, I don’t think this Rostock is heavy-duty enough to mill.

31

@ kurtnelle - wow! That’s an awesome delta bot. I especially like those screw drive motors. Never seen those before. :smiley:

1 Like
32

Yeah, I realize most delta implementations do keep the head parallel to the build surface
 I was thinking that if you made two of the axes pull higher than the third, it would tilt, without an actuator
 would have to do some experimenting to see exactly how precise you could keep it.

That’s exactly what I was thinking, but without having “proper” motor control on the extra 3 axes on the head.

33

Yep, I didn’t think about shortening/lengthening the arms themselves, but that would probably be a better control design than just having fixed length arms raised and lowered at different heights
 then again, it’s all math, so it may not make much difference


Either way, I WANT!

34

Looks like he made them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hccy_g6Aqgg&feature=plcp

From the comments:

35

I continue to be impressed yet somewhat disappointed that I can’t go out and buy them :frowning:

36

@ ianlee74, alot of people feel and continue to feel that way. On the bright side, the day is comming where you wont have that problem

And for completeness sake: An Industrial Parallel CNC Mill

37

I wen to NY Maker Faire yesterday and saw it in action. Very impressive.

38

@ stevepresely

Changing the arm length changes the effector position not tilt. As you raise one or more arms this effectively changes their lengths moving the level effector which, remains parallel to the given plane within 3D space. The only way to tilt the effector is as shown in the video. Manually twist the joint’s attach points. Or if you want motion without such complexity then place rotation on the effector.

The delta is cool because you can readily draw all over a given 3D space a plane at a time which is the FDM method done with filament hotend supplied printers.

39

If you move all three, I agree. I am saying move two of the arms and not the third, so that the tool platform doesn’t remain parallel to the build surface. If you have a flat surface, and move two of the three arms up, the platform has no choice but to tilt (assuming it doesn’t bind).

I am very familiar with hot end printing techniques. I have a MakerBot Replicator and another RepRap variant, as well as a 3D CNC router, another router and laser cutter build in progress.

40

@ steve, Hopefully within another year you can add Wire EDM to that list :slight_smile:

1 Like