Friday, November 1, 2013

Simple 18dof Hexapod, Arduino nano (optionally with pololu maestro)

hexapod.JPGHello,
Here is a simple hexapod that can be built by hand very quickly. The mechanical design is not great, but it is very much in the KISS (keep it stupidly simple) style and should be doable in a weekend for builders of novice to medium experience.

I won't be improving this project any time soon, and people seem to visit my blog from pololu, so I thought I'd go ahead and document it as is. I built this for a sophomore mechanical engineering class at MIT. The wires and six legs make it look complicated, but since the legs are just the same thing repeated 6 times, it's simpler than it appears. Additionally, I did not implement remote controls so all the code runs autonomously (zero input, multiple output system).

Again, this is documentation of the exact steps involved in a semi-working project. No theoretical underpinnings for designing your own hexapod are really explained here.

A complete picture set of the build process exists here: 2.007 Hexapod (Spring 2011). The first few pictures on there are from Aluminum Hexalinkagepod, based off of the Parallax boebot hexapod.
A set of blog posts exists here: http://orangenarwhals.blogspot.com/search/label/hexaringapod
I would specifically recommend this post: http://orangenarwhals.blogspot.com/2011/05/dreaming-of-dancing-hexapods-2007.html
A video explaining the design process in 7 minutes (this instructables goes into the construction but not the design): http://youtu.be/qTh-OGA_LeM 
and here is a video of it at the end:


Required items (hardware):
~ Vertical bandsaw (unless you have a lot of patience with a razor)
~ 1/4'' plastic sheet (any reasonable thickness such that the plastic is fairly rigid is fine. I used 1/4'' ABS)
~ About 6'' of 
~ 18 R/C servos (I recommend standard size, I've seen hexapods with the tiny 9g servos, but I think that it would be hard to cut out the holes for such servos by hand), complete with the "+" shaped servo horns and servo center screws that should come with the kit.
I used 6 Hitec-311 and 12 Vigor VS-2 servos because that was what I could scavenge for.
~ Screwdriver
~ 4-40 bolts and locknuts (about 36 of them), or whatever bolts fit through your servo flange holes (the side holes). At least 3/8'' long (enough for the 1/4'' plastic or Al and a locknut to fit on there).
~ Drill and drill bit, ideally also a drill press
~ Ratchet or socket wrench for 4-40 bolts
~ Ideally, a vice or clamp
~ Ideally, a horizontal bandsaw
~Optional: Scrap 2x4 wood
~ Measuring instrument, ruler or vastly preferably calipers
~ Optional: Deburring tool

Required items (electronics): 
~ Arduino nano + breadboard + male headers (for the servos)
~ Either 6 Y-splitter servo cables or a pololu serial servo controller (because the default arduino library only supports 12 servos). I bought an 24ch one, but obviously didn't need all 24 ch, not sure why I did that. >.<;; but I am a conservative person and tend to make large purchases just in case. I'm working on fixing this.
I guess another option is to use an arduino mega.
~ Laptop and usb programming cable appropriate for your flavor of arduino
Male Headers
~ Jumper wires (or single core wire
 suitable for breadboards)
~ Potentially some servo extension cables, female-to-female (and you stick headers in them to make them female-to-male) will come in handy.
~ Breadboard (probably a standard 700 point one is best if you are putting the nano onto the breadboard)
~ Battery pack (I recommend a rechargeable battery flavor of battery pack, as the 18 servos are power hungry)
~~ so you could use a 4xAA battery pack and it'd be fine (the servos are nominally 5V servos but they will run fine at 6v, they will just be a bit twitchy because their circuitry/feedback+controls are designed for 5v use), but if they were alkaline batteries (~3000mAh) they would run out after an hour or less of use

~~alternatively, use a LM7805 chip to regulate a lipo battery pack, which runs at 7.4v, down to 5V. These linear power regulators dissipate the extra energy as heat. For how to use one, please google "7805 tutorial". For instance, see: http://jumptuck.com/2011/11/15/voltage-regulation-friend-7805/.

Time required: 1 weekend if you just follow my design. I encourage you to design your own hexapod though, once you see how easy it is!

What I used also included a 2.007 (that's a course at MIT) carrier board (looks like https://sites.google.com/site/2007arduino/). This just brings the servo pins out for easy access, as well as has a built in breadboard and a switching power regulator* that can supply up to 3A at 5v, which is probably enough for the 18 servos. It seemed to function a-okay, but my code only ever had 6 servos moving at any given time.

I also made my own battery pack out of some Sanyo UR18650U batteries that were donated to MITERS by Tesla. They are 3.6V, so I made a 2-series, 3 parallel battery pack for a 7.2V 3.3Ah battery pack. This is obviously overkill. At 3.3 Ah and continuously drawing 3A, I could run my hexapod for over an hour. I've found that 10-20 minutes is plenty of runtime for hexapod.

*as opposed to a LM7805 linear power regulator, a switching power regulator is much more efficient.

Note:The hexapod CAD files are for Solidworks 2012 and do not detail nuts and bolts, they are for reference only. I also made a diameter versus radius error on the body, so the body is too big. 

DSCN2177.JPGWe'll be using paper templates to mark out six of the same thing (six legs).

My tibia ended up (after a few iterations) being 1.4x3.75 inches, with holes marked appropriately for where the servo horns would go.

My coxa ended up being 1.42x4.83 inches, with an appropriately sized hole cut out for the servo. The curve on the leg is an arbitrary "it looks nice" curve I cut out directly on the bandsaw (I started out with rectangular legs).

The CAD model you see in the pictures is a later and better (read: smaller and lighter, more appropriate for the servos) revision than the paper templates, and should give you some idea of how it the hexapod is assembled. So ignore the dimensions written on the paper template in the pictures.

Once you are done making the templates, mark them onto the plastic sheet in preparation for cutting. For marking the holes, sharpie bleeds through paper so just line the paper templates up with the plastic and mark the template with sharpie and it should show up on the plastic. I actually cut the legs out and then marked the holes; you can do it in any order.


View the original article here

No comments:

Post a Comment