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Materials and components

As the project must be accesible for every one, I need to find component and materials that are common in fablabs or online. However, I also considered the difficulty to produce my components and I’ve found different solution and alternatives to them.

Components and costs

Description Price Source Notes
Plastic spool 20.99 € Atom3D This project require way less than 1Kg
Stepper motor ~10 € Multiple or recycle
DRV 8825 2€ Amazon, Digikey, Gotronic
ABS Like Resin 60€ Atom3D This project require way less than 1Kg
Other electronics ~4€ Digikey, Mouser, Radiospare Fab-Inventory
Needle Bearings 5€ 123D roulement
Bearing 8€ 123D roulement
Thrust bearing 10€ Amazon Two are needed

Total : ~40€ / units

Machines and equipment

Machines Model
CNC PCB Engraver Sainsmart Genmitsu 1810
Power supply Eventek 0-30v 0-10A
3D printer Creality Ender 3 + BLTouch
Soldering station Mbuynow 852D
DLP Resin 3D printer Phrozen mini 4k
Vaccuum cleaner for CNC Low cost
Laser cutter Arketype Jade / Agathe 40W
Safety
Vinyl or Latex gloves
Gaz/Vapor Mask
Extinguisher
Safety goggle
Ear protection

Micro-controller

For the project, I used an Attiny 1614 microcontroller. This chip is in charge of :

  • Reading the position value based on a possible sensor (encoder, potentiometer…)
  • Control the stepper motor asynchronously (while doing something else)
  • Control LEDs asynchronously (while doing something else)
  • Communication trough I2C or using the RC control protocol (Like servomotors using PWM)
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As the product must be as much compact as possible, I need to design a very small control board (42mm x 42mm). You can see the development of the board into the assignment on week 11, 13, 14.

Motors

For the motor, I tested several stepper motors and reducers. I have plenty of stepper motor from recycled project. Nowadays you can find very cheap stepper motor since It became mainstream with inkjet printer and 3D printing. If you find an old copy machine somewhere. Open it up ! It contains doses of stepper. You can alson by some cheap chinese Stepper motor online. It works well for prototyping.

This being said, I worked mainly with two stepper motors. A NEMA17 Stepper motor and a NEMA23.

Here is a comparison with other actuators technology :

Type Advantages Disadvantages
Brushed DC Low cost, Easy to find or recycle Need an encoder
Brusless High torque Need an encoder, Specific driver, Expensive
Stepper Moderate cost, Easy to find or recycle Complex control sequence, low speed

For robot prototype, I need a powerful motor that can be controlled in position and speed. I want the whole product to be scalable. I choose the stepper motor because :

  • I have plenty of them and they are pretty common nowadays
  • It can operate in a wide range of voltage (12v-24v and even 80v)
  • High torque compared to Brushed DC
  • Can be used with or without encoder
  • I don’t need speed

So the main problem I should solve here is the control sequence. The motor should be as simple to use as a servo-motor, and Stepper motor are the exact opposite of control simplicity.

Here is the two Stepper I played with :

Details NEMA17 NEMA23
Size 42x42x40mm 57x57x56mm
Current 2.0A 2.8A
Stall Torque 0.45N.m ~ 45.9 gf.m 1.26N.m ~ 128.5 gf.m
Price Moderate cost, Easy to find or recycle Moderate cost, Easy to find or recycle
Resolution 1.8° / revolution (200 step/revolution) 1.8° / revolution (200 step/revolution)

Torque

Nema23
Nema17

CAO

To include them in the project I’ve drawn those two motors during CAD Week

Stepper motor driver

Originnaly, I was planning to integrate this component directly onto my pcb board.

You can control stepper motors without drivers with a bunch of transistor array. Stepper motors are really straitgh forward. I did that once on an educationnal robot. But the problems is you need 4 outputs on you microcontroller to handle the control sequence. You need to power the coil in a defined controlled sequence to make the motor move.

Full step sequence

Step A B C D
1 1 0 0 1
2 1 1 0 0
3 0 1 1 0
4 0 0 1 1

Half-Step sequence

Step A B C D
1 1 0 0 1
2 1 0 0 0
3 1 1 0 0
4 0 1 0 0
1 0 1 1 0
2 0 0 1 0
3 0 0 1 1
4 0 0 0 1

I encountered two problems. First, When I designed the board, The driver chip wasn’t available on digikey or mouser. Also, I want my board to be compatible with different driver to ensure people can change the driver if he fry and use the driver alone if they don’t need my board anymore.

I had a lot of A4588 driver and Pololu DRV8825 at home. There is a way to create a board which is compatible with both of them. So I did. My board is compatible with both of those driver to handle the motor.

Using this driver save 1 output ont the microcontroller because I need :

  • 1 pin for step
  • 1 pin for direction
  • 1 pin for enable

Each time you send a pulse on the step pin, the driver will increment to step according to the array above. As a result the motor will move by 1 step : 1.8 deg. The dir pin will change the direction in the step table. The enable pin power on and of the stepper motor. If the motor is idle and enabled, the output shaft is blocked. If you’re disabling the driver, the stepper will be free to move.

Bearings

For my reducer, I will need a few ball bearings. Bearings are in charge of the rotational joint and hanlde a bit of the structural force. Using bearing avoid damaging your stepper motor by loading directly the output shaft.

To handle all the mechanical loads inside and outside the reducer I choose three different bearings that I had to model.

The output of my reducer will use a big ball bearing to handle has radial force. If you plan to attach a robot arm to this reducer, No problem for this bearing ! This bearing can handle radial and axial load.

Inside the reducers, their is a little cameshaft oscilating to drive the planetary gear. This little bearing needs to be very compact and can handle radial big load.

This last bearing is special, It is a flat bearing. He can handle high axial load but no radial load. I will help the previous one inside the reducer.


Last update: June 29, 2022