Most of the time spent this week was on expanding and reinforcing the gantry to compensate for the sag caused by scaling up the design of the 4xidraw. I was able to construct a large frame around the conveyor belt in order to provide a mount for the 4xidraw. I then had to redesign some of the parts of the 4xidraw so that there would be no sag; this involved making one of the rods slide along the frame so that it supported the end-effector. I was also able to print out the rack so that the rack-and-pinion z-axis movement was complete. I’ve also begun testing the vacuum pump with the suction cup. It seems to be able to pick up flat, non-porous objects like plastic consistently, however it does not work as well with porous materials like paper.
Next week I plan to start working on programming the xy movement and will hopefully finish a fleshed out design of the vacuum end-effector. I am slightly behind schedule as I didn’t anticipate the rebuilding of the gantry to take as long as it did.
The picture of the current gantry is shown below: