This past week was mainly spent working on the 3D printed parts for the manipulator. The newest iteration of our mount finally got the hole size right, so it slides up and down relatively smoothly. It will be interesting to see how well it works once the suction cup is attached to the stepper motor.
The adapter for the suction cup and stepper motor is going along well. It seems like there’s enough clearance in the area that we don’t need to cut the stepper motor axle. The next iteration needs to be longer and have a slightly larger hole for the suction cup, but it should be doable. I’ll have the stl to Yon by Monday for more testing.
The last 3D printed piece I’ll be working on is electronics housing. It will be a long box along one of the T-channels on the frame, housing the mirocontroller and dc air pump. There will be a micro-usb port and a 12V DC adapter port. I’m leaving this for last once we confirm full functionality for the manipulator itself.
Everything is still on schedule, hopefully the adapter doesn’t take too many iterations to finish. It prints pretty quickly (40min), so I may spend an afternoon in our 3D printing area to prototype and get it right.