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:
Next → V. Electronics and Software
Welcome to the University Wiki Service! Please use your IID (yourEID@eid.utexas.edu) when prompted for your email address during login or click here to enter your EID. If you are experiencing any issues loading content on pages, please try these steps to clear your browser cache.