A New Phase in 3D

[jeffroig]

As most of you know I moved onto designing robots.
My primary objective is to design a robot that is inexpensive, easy to use, provides assistance to those that are disabled or those that are unable to do it on their own.
I am still doing 3D but in another fashion, the objects that I design now are parts for the robot and are then printed.
For those of you who are interested in a good 3D printer that will not break the bank, here is a link to what I use.
http://www.rp3d.com/shop/3clerance-sale ... -p-16.html
Currently I am working on designing hands for my Biped.
Most of the hands that you see biped using are either hooks of a sort or claws.
I wanted something that actually had fingers and resembled a hand.
Who in the world wants captain hook trying to bring you a glass of water or wave hello, that alone would scare some people.
The problem with any type of hand that has several fingers not just two like a claw is how to we use all of those joints with just one or two servos.
So after a lot of thought I came up with a idea that would only need two servos to control 4 fingers and one thumb.
It requires some cables that run through the fingers and some springs to act as tendons for return position.
Here is a image of my latest design in a hand for the biped.
Typically what i do is design a prototype from paper or cardboard and then make adjustments as needed and then it goes to the 3D design phase and then onto printing.
While this is still in the prototype/design phase and has not been printed yet I will be printing it soon.
Here is my 3D model of a biped hand.

[Emmanuel]

This sounds very interesting !
Do you have pictures of printed objects ? Do you generate your stl files direct from trueSpace or do you make some edition in a dedicated software ?
I see your website is down now. Is there a blog or facebook place where you share the progress of your project ?

[jeffroig]

For the most part I try to keep my designs private until tested and tried and documented.
I no longer have the website 3dcrativeanimation.com.
I did purchase a new domain assistivecompanion.com a few years ago and had the site hosted on a free site.
How ever something happened there recently and my files all got deleted. I am looking into a new hosting site just have not found one yet.
I use AccuTrans to convert the object files to STL I also use SolidWorks at times.

[Steinie]

Building parts of a robot with a 3d printer sounds awesome! The picture of the robotic hand made me think "wouldn't be better if the cup of the hand was curved for grasping items"
Thanks for sharing and I hope you continue to post when you can!
Welcome back Jeff BTW!!!

[jeffroig]

Thanks Steinie.
There are reason that go into the engineering side why the hand can not be cupped.
I agree but it will not work with the current design.
I got my site back up to some degree so you can see some of my projects there.
While this is only a small portion of the projects I will hopefully be able to get the rest up soon.

http://www.assistivecompanion.com

[Steinie]

Jeff, I can't even check out your sites because of all the advertising trying to force me to click their popups!

[jeffroig]

Steinie,
Thanks for saying something as I use a ad blocker so I didnt see it until I tried IE.
May have to switch to another host.

[Finis]

Great project! The 3D printing aspects could help to make these more affordable.

I didn't see ads due to NoScript but I may have missed some content too. I only saw videos.

Hosting: U3DA is hosted by Hostgator and they have done a fine job. I use Midphase for my websites and they are great too. It is easy to make a website with Wordpress and you can make one free (and avoid hosting expenses) at http://www.wordpress.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

[jeffroig]

Hey Finis,
I hope u have been doing good and the family is good.
Thank you for the advice on the site.
I got it going, http://www.assistivecompanion.com