I have been given the task of investigating the possibility to create a robot arm that are capable of moving a cup of coffee, say 300g weight and a cup diameter of 7-8 centimeters, from a pick up location to a landing are approx 70-80 centimeters away.
I have absolutely no clue at all how to do wiring and such so it have to be as easy as possible to assemble and program. It should be able to grip the cup when getting a trigger from a Raspberry Pi or similar.
What would I need to be able to build such a beast? What time, for a relative newbie are we talking about, and how much money are we talking about?
You’d need a fairly simple servo controller and power supply capable of 6V at ~10A. A computer power supply has a 5V 10A (often 20A) output and the servos can operate between 4.8V to 6VDC.
Possible servo controller: robotshop.com/en/lynxmotion … oller.html
Free software for this controller: robotshop.com/en/ssc-32-ser … ility.html
You’d likely also need a wiring harness.
If you want a Pi instead, just choose a Pi compatible controller. The SSC-32u can be plugged into a Pi’s USB port, and if you know some Python, should be able to create your own code.
Thanks for the answers. I am thinking about the uArm Swift Pro but the gripper that comes with that can only manage 4 cm wide objects. Can I perhaps use another gripper with that? For example the bigger of the two grippers from Actobotics referred to above?
I really like a robot arm that can be taught by moving it around like the uArm Swift Pro. Or are there another arm like that, so that we minimize the programming and control part as much as possible?
My overall scenario is as follows.
We have a SAP-system connected to SAP’s IoT and cloud platform. Using a mobile app we are creating orders for coffee in the SAP system and then we push those orders using SAP IoT.
Then we have a coffee machine that we hacked and a Raspberry Pi and some relays to automatically press the buttons for different kinds of coffee according to the orders pushed to IoT. All that is working just fine.
Now we have a Transport and Production exhibition in November that we need to enhance the coffee machine scenario for to add a bit of transportation touch to it.
Up came the robot arm idea to pick up the coffee mug from the machine and put it on a “loading area” where the customer will pick up the coffee. The loading area will be a home made scale using a Raspberry Pi. The Pi, when registering a load on the scale, will send a command to SAP and we will do a goods issue and send a confirmation sms to the customer that the coffee is ready for pickup.
To now we “just” need a nice robotic arm that is not to hard to use for a robotics newbie and that are able to move the cup/mug from the coffee machine to the loading area. I am not sure how much accuracy is needed in our scenario but I guess a couple of millimeters are no problem. It is more important I guess that the movement is smooth so that the coffee stays in the cup when we move it.
It’s a stand alone system, and mechanically there is no easy way to connect a gripper from a different manufacturer to that arm. You can try using the angled adapter plate, but there are no guides nor details as to what third party grippers it might work with.
That’s a “teach mode”, which the latest Dobot also has.
It sounds like a Dobot Arm and conveyor belt would get you up and running quickly. Obviously some programming would be needed. robotshop.com/en/dobot.html
]The Dobot would be able to push buttons/:m] ]The coffee mug would be placed on the conveyor which is placed below the exit of the coffee machine (not great to have water or coffee spill onto it though, so if you can figure something out there…/:m] ]Once full, the conveyor would move the mug away from the machine and push it onto the scale/:m] ]The Dobot arm would then pick up the next coffee mug (applying pressure from inside out rather than holding the handle)/:m] ]If you use a second conveyor system, you could have a row of mugs./:m]
