I am building a 6 DOF robotic arm and i need to find brakes that will stop the arm from falling in case the power is turned off. How do i know what torque requirement on the brake is good enough to achieve this?
You will need to do a torque balance, similar to:
robotshop.com/blog/en/robot- … orial-7152
robotshop.com/blog/en/robot- … lator-9712
The torque needed to maintain the arm in place would be the same as is needed by a braking system.
Calculate for worst case scenario.
Thanks!! That was very helpful.
In addition, what if the arm was in motion. Say one of the motors had a peak stall torque of 330 Nm and RPM of 30. How would i calculate the required torque for the brakes?
If you are braking, it’s simplest to not power that joint (should only be in either status: braking or motion). Braking would cause the motor to have to provide additional torque, which is not good. If on the other hand the braking is helping counteract gravity, then the actuator only needs to provide the difference between the torque which is being provided by the brake and the torque needed to counteract gravitational pull.