[TriEmbed] Robotic Arm

Jon Wolfe jonjwolfe at anibit.com
Mon Feb 8 16:25:55 CST 2016


Brian, I have one of the OWI "walmart" Arms, i got as a gift a few years ago. Since you're not coming tonight, i can bring it in next month. If you want to see what it looks like in person. I dont have the usb attachment, but I'd probably skip that anyways, i think it uses custom, Windows inly software drivers. Your better off hooking up to the pi via gpio.
I think sensors could be attached to it, i think ive seening on the web somewhere, but honestly, I think the MeArm would be a better arm for your use case, being servo-based, it's much easier to control.





-------- Original message --------
From: Rodney Radford via TriEmbed <triembed at triembed.org> 
Date: 2/8/2016  5:12 PM  (GMT-05:00) 
To: Pete Soper <pete at soper.us> 
Cc: TriEmbed Discussion <triembed at triembed.org> 
Subject: Re: [TriEmbed] Robotic Arm 

Sorry for two messages back to back... but the USB controller just allows pushing the buttons to move each joint, there is no feedback on any of the joints.
So you can tell it to move clockwise or counterclockwise on each motor, but you cannot tell it to move to 85 degrees, or to move to a specific spot in 3D space.  To do that would require adding feedback at each motor, and without seeing the arm up close, i am not sure how difficult a task that would be (is there room for a sensor on each joint?).
Feedback will be needed to handle the task Brian mentioned of stacking blocks...
On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 5:04 PM, Rodney Radford <ncgadgetry at gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, the arm is $51.51 from Walmart, but then you need to buy the USB extension kit as a separate item and it is about $33.90 (also at Walmart).
Still cheaper, but by the time you buy both the total is $85.41.


On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 4:24 PM, Pete Soper via TriEmbed <triembed at triembed.org> wrote:
(quick search)



It appears you can get the arm described in the article below from the Walmart web site for around fifty dollars:



http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-and-Wiimote-controlled-Robot-Arm/



-Pete



On 02/08/2016 03:51 PM, Grawburg via TriEmbed wrote:


Won't get to the meeting tonight so I'm asking my question here.



I'm looking for a robotic arm that's a bit more robust the the Maplin kits I've seen on line. Of course, it will need to be

connected to a Raspberry Pi and programmable with Python.  I'm looking for something that can be programmed to pick

up small blocks and stack them to make a something like a square. It should be in the $75-$100 range...I will probably

end of using 4 for the summer class.



So far I only find Maplins or units that are too expensive.



Any suggestions?





Thanks,

Brian Grawburg










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