Recommendation for robot arm used as a scratch tester

Lynxmotion Robot Arms
1

I want to do Mohs hardness tests of phone screens using a robot arm. That involves the arm holding a pen with the Mohs and attempting to engrave on the phone screen with a known force. I think what I’m looking for has these properties:

]Programmable through some open standard/:m]
]USB control ideally (acceptable to go from serial to USB if necessary)/:m]
]Servos come with it/:m]
]Ideally already assembled/:m]
]Ideally some way to measure the force/weight used to press down the arm so it’s consistent from test to test/:m]
]Ideally comes with a gripper/:m]
Experienced programmer, but far less experienced with electronics other than some embedded devices years ago.

Can someone recommend a RobotShip robot arm for this purpose? I’m leaning toward the uArm Swift 4 Degrees of Freedom Metal Robotic Arm.

Thanks much.

2

Hi tomcam,

This seems like a dedicated application, a standard low cost robotic arm will not be great for this purpose.
What you might need is a linear actuator which go back and forth over the screen (and pen) with a load cell system that can monitor the force applied.

This is all custom so you need to build it yourself :slight_smile:

3

Thanks, Eric!