Pick and place nozzle work [finished]

Projects
1

I’ve been building a robot to pick and place jigsaw pieces.
I have a 12v air pump motors from sparkfun to rubber tubing to a 3d printed adapter to a nema17 with a hollow shaft to a silicone nozzle. In theory pump turns on, air suction at nozzle should lift a piece and nema17 should be able to turn said piece.

In practice suction at adapter is great, suction at silicone nozzle is crazy weak. I removed the silicone and tested on the stepper shaft, still crazy weak. I tried putting a piece of rubber between the 3d printed adapter and the motor. I am looking for silicone grease now to smear between the adapter and the motor.

Pick and place experts of VHS, what do you suggest? @rsim @TomKeddie ?

2

Does your design require the nema17 to rotate indefinitely, or can it be limited to some small number of rotations?

3

That rubber I provided you be too rigid to provide a good seal, you might want to try some gummier material

4

indefinite rotation. gummier would be better. I’ll try and get a piece of bike inner tube.

5

So your 3D printed adaptor is leaky? Use something like this: KSH Connector for PNP Machine - RobotDigg

If your (hollow shaft) stepper doesn’t already have an M5 inner thread at the back, they’re easy to tap.

6

Two months after ordering, parts finally arrived.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKokKufjlSQ/

I have a 6mm (1/4") ID tube to connect on the blue end of this stepper motor. How do?

1 Like
7

The blue round part should depress into the white bit it is attached to…
While you press it in, you should be able to slide the tubing into it, then when you release the blue bit the tube should be locked in place…

If that makes sense…

BTW… I had similar types of connectors in a solder dispenser. They ran the shortest lengths of 6 mm tubing so it was a mess inside. I replaced all that tubing with nicely run 1/4" tubing (all I could find locally). However I found most of the connections leaked. I have to go back to the 6 mm tubing it came with.

8

There’s no way I can fit a 1/4" ID tube in there.

A 1/4" OD tube, maybe.

I asked RobotDigg three times to very carefully tell me which part I needed for my tube size. :anguished:

9

I need a 1/4" ID to 1/4" ID male/male connector from New Line hose & fittings. Anyone in Burnaby able bring one with receipt to VHS on tuesday?

10

Does your design require the nema17 to rotate indefinitely, or can it be limited to some small number of rotations?

11

I finished this robot some time ago. The nozzle system is able to rotate indefinitely.