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Posted by Wayne Lundberg on July 6, 2006, 7:18 pm
My son gave me a LockJaw the other day. It has the mechanical portion of
what you suggest. It's a very clever way of using a small mechanical force
to affect tons of pressure on the gripper. Kind of like a mechanical
transistor. I keep it on my desk because it is so fascinating to play with
and experiment with all the possible variations. www.lockjawpliers.com in
Crystal Lake, Il.
> Wayne Lundberg wrote:
> > I'm sitting here with a full blown prototyping shop, CAD software, half
a
> > dozen computers/robots in the shop, and no projects. Money is not the
issue,
> > but my time should be put to use for the benefit of mankind in one form
or
> > other.
> > I've been in this newsgroup long enough for most participants to know me
and
> > vouch for me as the kind of person who is more interested in helping new
> > inventors than in making a buck.
> > If you want to see my shop, ask. I'll send you a PowerPoint shortie and
we
> > can go from there.
> Wayne:
> I've always thought that a hobbyist grade gripper could
> sense how tightly it is gripping something would
> be an interesting project. The concept here would be
> to have some sort of force sensor in the gripper so
> that the robot could command the gripper to close with
> 1 lbf (lbf=pounds force) for picking up an empty soda
> can and 4 lbf for picking up a full soda can.
> For force feedback I was think of using a spring.
> By Hooke's law the spring force is linearly proportional
> to the distance from spring rest. I figure a linear
> potentiometer could measure the distance from rest.
> If you can work out the mechanics, I'm sure there is
> are a whole bunch of people who can work out the electronics.
> I suspect that the electronics from a servo could be
> place into service, since a servo is basically a potentiometer
> and an H-bridge driving a motor.
> Anyhow, I'll leave you with the thought to see if it catches
> your fancy.
> Later,
> -Wayne (Gramlich)
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> dozen computers/robots in the shop, and no projects. Money is not the issue,
> but my time should be put to use for the benefit of mankind in one form or
> other.
>
> I've been in this newsgroup long enough for most participants to know me and
> vouch for me as the kind of person who is more interested in helping new
> inventors than in making a buck.
>
> If you want to see my shop, ask. I'll send you a PowerPoint shortie and we
> can go from there.