I'm stuck on a problem with my robot. Trying to add a rotating base to a robotic arm but Im not sure how I would keep the wires from the joints from spinning and eventually getting tangled. Anyone come across this problem? Base was orignally supposed to only rotate 180 degrees so I think I may have to start over on my design. Anyone have this problem with rotating bases?
I believe what you are looking for is
slip rings. They allow one to feed power across a continuously rotating joint.
Adafruit offers several slip
Adafruit offers several slip ring options. I have never used one so I cannot comment on their performance.
http://www.adafruit.com/product/736
http://www.adafruit.com/products/775
Thanks for all the replies.
Thanks for all the replies. I’ve been looking into slip rings and Im going to try and get a simple one going just transferring power. Stereo plug or phone cord detangler seem easy to find this weekend. I’d like to try and come up with my own though, but this is where the headache starts, maybe someone can chime in… (Thanks for the link ossipee)
So I have 7 servos above my 8th base servo. Also 2 rgb leds. Totaling 14 pwm pins + 5v and Ground = 16 pin slip ring. Also, this setup would use one ring for power and one ring for ground, the rest for pwm. Meaning these 2 rings would have to be able to handle the max current draw for all motors and leds at full power right? Pretty much whatever the power supply itself is rated for. (Im using a 3A PS right now, no problems yet) Do you know how much current you were trying to draw with that neopixel ring/slip ring setup Duane?
I was thinking the other alternative would be to have the board mounted above the base motor. Making it only a 3 ring instead of 16, but Im not sure if having the board spinning is a good idea. Im using BT for this project, not sure if it will cause problems.
The other thought was to get an I2C pwm controller, putting that above the base, having all motors and servo’s attached to it, making it a 4-ring slip ring…
wireless?
At the cost of making the build quite a bit more complicated, you could use bluetooth or something like it for the PWMs. Then you only have to worry about the ground and +5 leads.
EDIT: IR would be best for wireless, but anyway, if you’re going to add a microcontroller above the rotation servo, you could just as well add 1 or 2 data lines (eg serial) and send all the pwm data over that. Can use a slip ring with only 3 contacts then.