Source of Machine Cut Body Parts

Lynxmotion Legged Robots
1

I’m attempting to design a quadrapod from scratch and am looking for a source to produce tibia, fermurs, of custom dimensions. I’ve been lurking on these forums for a while and although most people here seem to use kits I have noticed talk of people experimenting with various leg dimensions. Is there a reasonable source for this kind of thing? (I haven’t yet settled on a material but I am considering aluminum, steel, or lexan)

Thanks

edit: Just to be clear, I’m looking to basically send somebody some money and a cad file and have them send me pre-cut pieces. Anything like that exist?

edit2: I’m interested in places like this (I tried to post a link but it wouldn’t let me):
prhoffman
ponoko (is 0.04" aluminium or steel strong enough?)

2

Id make some straight pieces out of some 8th or possibly 3/32 inch thick carbon fiber sheet…

but aluminum would be more then adequate… although CF would just look cool

–Aaron

3

CF would be nice but I’d this point I’d settle for anything that I wouldn’t have to cut myself - I’m just not skilled enough to be able to cut two nearly identical pieces of metal, plastic, or even foam core board for that matter. :frowning:

4

you might have trouble then. :confused:

if you want to make the parts yourself then custom cuts would be the way to go.

have you had a chance to mess about with the SES yet?

CF would be highly expensive, although as LikWidChz said’ it would look nice.

i would say your best option “if trying to avoid cutting” would be to purchase the SES and work from there. you could always use shapelock:
shapelock.com/page5.html

5

Take a look at Xan’s robot he made, he made the Tibia out of servo arms… quite inexpensive yet ingenious if you ask me, but also perfect looking and easy to reproduce as you will have a lot of bits left over once you order 18 servos :slight_smile:

as for the body, take a look at what lynxmotion offers for servo brackets, this part will take you a while because they offer quite a bit of stuff along with kinda going into it blind because there is so much to look at and ideas will be flowing… they aren’t that expensive considering you will spend quite a bit on 18 servos.

Pick out a selection of servo brackets you will need, I’m pretty sure you can find something that might work for you.

6

Not long back somebody posted a link to an outfit that makes custom parts. They even have an online design application where you can draw the part that is needed with a demo. I can’t remember enough of the name to do a board search.

7

www.emachineshop.com offers easy to use free software to design custom parts. You draw the parts and then order the quantities to have made. It can be a bit pricy, but if you design small parts using sheet material then you can get fair results with pricing especially if ordering several of the same part.

They have a tutorial that is worth watching. Only down side is the software does not export 3D cad, however, it does allow the eport of DXF files for 2D cutting.

8

Tyberius used the big blue saw for his mech.

9

Ah ok, I had read SES but wasn’t sure what it meant until just now when I looked at the products page: Servo Erector Set.

Thanks to everyone for all the ideas and comments!

10

sorry for not making that clear. should have applied a link to my post for ya.

good luck with future works and hope to see something soon. :wink:

11

I had some parts made out of 0.125" aluminum by a (semi) local laser-cutting business. I live near Portland, OR and I’ve found at least 3 places in the area that will do this. I sent them a 2-D cad file and a credit card number and they shipped the completed parts to me.

You should be able to find someone in your area. If not, ask at a machine shop. They should know who does laser cutting.