IV. Manufacturing and Assembly - CZ

Test Joint Assembly

For the test assembly, I chose to make the leg out of wood and the base out of black acrylic to give a good contrast between the leg and the test fixture. To create the joints in the leg, I used M3 bolts with nylon spacers. While the bolts do add some friction to the assembly, it is easy to implement and reduces the design complexity. I want the entire assembly to be lasercut because that reduces the time and work that goes into creating a large robot like this. The only 3d printed parts in the model are the driveshafts between the gears and the leg. 

For scale, the mechanism leg is approximately 8 inches long.

Figure 11 - Leg Test Assembly 

While building the test assembly, I discovered a few small issues with the original leg design. First, the bolts that I had were not long enough to properly accommodate the width of the leg and spacers. In response to that, I ordered longer bolts and nylon spacers for the final assembly. Second, there was some play between the lasercut gears and 3d printed shafts so I increased the shaft diameter to create a much tighter fit in the assembly. Third, I created an entirely new gear since I was concerned that the small teeth on the test gear would strip under high loads.

Video of the working Leg Test Assembly:

https://youtu.be/7uAp6A9joUI

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