In my 13 years technical project, my task is to develop any project of my choice for stakeholders.
I decided to design, manufacture and implement a remote-controlled mechanical spider because, why not?
This project is a fusion of complex and simple components;
From relatively simple frames to radio transmitters, motors and various other components.
I first made the whole project using Autodesk Inventor Professional 2013 and I upload my CAD file if needed.
This project is difficult to complete, unless you have the ability in a variety of different workshop skills including electronics, I do not recommend you to do it.
Also, if you have access to a water jet or a laser cutter or something similar that can be cut automatically and precisely, it will make this project easier because I don't, at least it took me a long time (
This is why I entered)
I am just a student and I believe there are many alternatives to the different components I make, such as the steering mechanism, it's much easier than any feedback I 've worked so hard to make, thank you very much and feel free to add your own ideas to the mix, see what works as anyone's business does in the finished rush around and guarantee to scare away any pet's garbage, large rodent or child it. Materials -
This project needs to be purchased (
Or stealth retrieval)of. . .
Tool note: Please click on the picture to see the comments that match the text.
I apologize for any vague photos.
Here is a link to the report I completed, with a deeper discussion of my project: if you have any intention to make this project, I highly recommend reading it! ! !
Also thanks to my friend Ben Murton who was very helpful with my first instruction.
As can be seen from the picture, I drew my first concept, roughly showing the design route I wanted to follow after writing a list of all the components needed for this project.
Including: * Frame * Turning mechanics * Legs * Power mechanics * Electronics, I explained my drawings and made a 3D model of the finished product I imagined using autodesk inventor professional 2013.
Note that if these drawings are overwhelming, I break them down and detail each component and how they work in the following steps.
What's useful in Autodesk is that each project is saved in.
The ipt format that the 3d printer can print.
Therefore, it is very easy to print any components that may be difficult to make using traditional methods.
The framework of this project is the foundation of everything else, so it must be very careful when designing and building it.
In order to maintain the appearance of the spider, the legs are arranged in pairs, so the basic frame is divided into 4 parts, one for each leg.
This spider needs to have the ability to turn, so the frame is made of 2 pieces and 4 legs each (
This will be explained in more detail soon).
Each half also comes with a flat back panel that can be easily attached to the turning mechanism.
As shown in the picture provided, the frame is in a reasonable size in order to accommodate the leg pair.
The large amount of open space left inside is extra space for me and can be used whenever I need it, such as batteries, wires, receivers, etc.
The power system and its installation take up a large part of the space.
The reason it has a special pointed shape is for beauty, as these do not have any benefit to the functionality of my project.
The framework is the main component of the most attention, so it has to look as good as possible in my opinion.
To make it, I printed a 2D mesh for every half and stuck it on a large sheet of 3mm acrylic plastic.
Then using a rolling saw, I cut out the profile and some slots that allow the middle part to be inserted (see pictures)
Before manually filing any excess plastic rods and drilling holes for the different parts to be connected. (
This step will be much faster if you have some form of laser or CNC cutting machine that you can use instead of manual operation).
After that, I heated the area that needed to be bent with a plastic bending machine and used a wooden guide block cut into the correct angle to bend the acrylic into the desired shape.
Once this is done, all that is needed is to glue the middle part in place and the frame is done.
In order for the project to be fully remote controlled, it must have the ability to turn.
Because there is a lot of weight on each side, this motion system needs to be powerful while maintaining its ability to actually turn.
I built a 3D model for my initial design with waste wood (
Obviously my end product won't be made of wood, though the floating spider is even more terrible now thinking of it).
It works by connecting two pivot points through one rod to both sides of the frame of the turning mechanism.
One of the pivot points is at the exact center of a single gear and the other is at the edge of the half gear radius (see images).
When the half gear side rotates, the tooth net interacts, causing the adjacent side to move in the opposite direction, similar to the general rotation mechanism.
However, after several tests of this design and a 3D model built on the computer, I found that this mechanism is either frequently blocked or often loose.
This is because when the short side rotates, there is nothing to stop it from moving on until it ends up separated from a single gear, as it loses all the running movement until it moves in the opposite direction.
Using what I found out from the original concept, I developed a new idea on it.
In this design, it features a more appropriate pivot point with a short frame outside.
When built like this (
As long as all the gears are scaled and well assembled together)
It acts as a self-limiting device and is forced to stop when a longer internal frame collides with a shorter frame during rotation.
This self-limitation means that the module is designed to function exactly as expected and to meet all the requirements of the construction.
So I think it's right to start construction.
I recommend my second more mature idea if you do this project yourself, even if it's hard to make.
First, I made two gears with 20mm acrylic plastic and drilled a 5mm hole in the center of each gear, then cut one of them in half, then drilled and tapped to get ready.
After that, I used a scribbler to scrape the mesh of the turning mechanism on aluminum paper and drill holes on it.
Upon completion, I cut it out with a hacksaw and bend it at right angles until the frame part of the turning mechanism is completed.
After that, I put the nylon on the metal car bed, drilled out 5mm and separated it at the required length in order to be used as an interval between the gear and the frame.
In addition, because nylon is self-lubricating, it can ensure a smooth rotation.
Finally, I fixed the half gear bolt to the small side of the frame and made sure that the teeth were in two before using the 5mm brass rod to connect the two frames half together and fix everything in place.
Attach the large gear to the brass rod with flat head screws.
The test by rotating the large bar shows that the small side of the rotating mechanism is the force responding to the movement. (see picture)
If there is time and place to find a convenient laser cutting machine, that is the step.
I don't just want an item to walk with 8 legs.
I want to make the motion of the leg look like a spider, so I modeled it as my design after the spider walk simulation.
This method has two legs walking from each other for a full half cycle, so I translated it into a mechanical moment and made my design with 4 pieces, replace each joint on the Spider's leg with a pivot, redesign it so that the fixed points during movement are mounted on the frame, and then come up with a way to power the walking motion.
There are 4 pieces per leg, so 32 separate parts must be manufactured (pictured)
To power it, I tried to replace the spider's muscles with wheels and connect each leg to the other leg for 180 degrees.
In this way, the legs can go out of phase.
This raises another question, however, when the circle rotates, the legs rotate and are immediately stuck with the shaft where the wheel is located.
This is solved by the design of the crankshaft (pictured)
Allow the legs to rotate 360 degrees.
Once this crankshaft design worked on Autodesk inventor, I started making all the leg pieces by hand.
I then started building all 32 individual leg blocks.
When I knew I was going to cut these from the 3mm aluminum sheet, I wasn't sure about the method.
First of all, I accepted the idea of cutting legs quickly using a plasma cutter, but I have never used a plasma cutter before, and I don't want to risk breaking leg integrity.
This is what I did.
I printed the scale shape of the actual size of all legs at 1:1 and then stuck it to the aluminum plate with a similar set of components with normal glue.
After roughly cutting out these individual parts with a hacksaw (
A difficult task because there are 32)
Then I drilled out all the holes.
This bonding step is not necessary if you have an automatic laser capable of engraving.
It's time to be smart.
I fixed all eight parts together with bolts, drilled through them and put them all in the mill.
Due to the nature of the machine, I use it to easily remove the excess aluminum neatly from the edges.
All that is left after completing this step is to file and polish all the legs to remove any sharp burrs generated during this process and give them a fascinating shine. (
Even though I'm still not sure if this light comes from sandpaper or from all the sweat and tears I 've had in this step)
I came up with three different ideas to power the rotation of the legs, all of which use the motor because I want to be able to control the motion remotely.
I 've posted all 3 articles showing alternatives to the methods I actually follow if you want to try something different yourself.
They are as follows: sprocket (pictured)
Although the concept itself is not a sprocket, it has many similar features and is therefore a comparison name.
My idea is not to mesh on the belt like the actual sprocket, but to use the two no belt sprocket itself, which interact and rotate the crankshaft at a 90 degree angle.
This can be seen as a concept similar to the umbrella gear.
The reason I didn't use umbrella gears for this concept is because they are expensive and relatively speaking, it takes relatively little effort to build this idea myself with the same standards as buying items.
In the end, however, this is a fairly complex design, and if the measurement is not perfect, it is not an effective way to transfer momentum in the end, and it is easily disturbed. Belt (pictured)
In this option, the belt runs between the power supply motor and the crankshaft, so the motor rotates when powered on, which in turn forces the leg to move.
For this concept, I need a high friction material that can be bent to use for the belt itself, and a way to attach it to both sides of the system.
These possibilities include polishing a small groove on the crankshaft to prevent the belt from slipping and making a nylon head with the belt slot attached to the end of the motor.
The disadvantages of this method are expensive components, the risk of sliding, the need for constant lubrication, difficult to repair, the need for very fine engineering skills.
This is the option I ended up following.
For this concept, the motor provides power to a ready-made or purchased gearbox.
When the motor is turned on, it rotates a certain number of gears (
With a preferred gear ratio)
This rotates the crankshaft again.
If the gear ratio is optimal then I will get a specified RPM which gives me the option to choose the ideal speed for spider walking.
The gearbox may not be connected to the crankshaft, and may act as a whole depending on the product selected.
Because gear alignment is very important to this design, I made sure I got a gearbox with an ideal gear ratio.
I ended up buying 4 gearboxes to use (pictured).
I do this because they have built in motors and act as a crankshaft myself, so I don't have to make it myself, but this is definitely the most expensive part of my project.
Each of these gearboxes will be connected to the legs and frame via a rectangular piece of acrylic plastic, and some abandonment will be added to it, which allows the gearbox to move up and down, instead of breaking it if the leg starts moving too fast, it sticks to acrylic (
You can see this picture and video later)
After the last photo of the gearbox I assembled, I had to shorten the axle length so they could be placed next to my frame.
The gearbox I use: the picture in this step is a representation of the picture on my project and their actual location is explained in the assembly step.
This step is just to explain the functionality of each component.
For the sake of understanding, this circuit diagram is a very simplified version that does not include electronic devices inside each major component.
The battery used for this project is standard 8.
4 volt rechargeable styling battery.
By the law of kilhoff (
Series voltage split)
I can use all eight.
4 V or split, with 4. 2.
There are many reasons why I chose to use this battery, that is, it is rechargeable, which is very convenient for such a toy that will use electricity quickly, it is light weight, so there is no increase in the quality that needs to be moved, the plastic adapter applies to other radio devices I have, such as speed controllers and receivers, and the fact that I never need to buy it, because it's a spare battery in my garage. While 8.
There is a risk of burning the motor in 4 volts, I have no choice but to connect them in parallel, because connecting each pair in series means that there is not enough power to be used, and the motor does not turn under the pressure of the leg.
So when using my project, I have to make sure I don't use the throttle too much, otherwise it will damage the motor.
The servo is to provide the movement of my steering mechanism, just like any regular servo, the receiver receives the signal from the transmitter and sends it to the servo and speed controller.
It is this device that is in sync with the controller that allows me to receive radio signals due to the built-in antenna.
The speed controller is the core part of this project and is something that controls the servo motors and motors by limiting their rotation in proportion to the amount applied to it by the transmitter.
It is connected to the battery and all four motors are connected in parallel, receiver and switch.
Luckily I was able to use the receiver, the transmitter and speed controller of an old remote control car, and find a suitable battery, which saved me a lot of money, and allow me to recycle the old parts.