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2021-01-15 8:40 pm
Today I’ll be putting together a 5 DOF Robot Arm kit by DF Robot and I will control it using an Arduino
Arm provided by DFRobot - https://www.dfrobot.com
Article with code at https://dbot.ws/5dofarm
If you’ve been with the channel for a while you may remember that I assembled a MeArm a while ago. It was a fun project and the resulting arm was great for simple robotics experiments but it didn’t really have any serious capabilities.
In this video, I’m going to put together a much-improved arm, the 5 DOF Robot Arm by DF Robot.
This arm uses high-quality aluminum parts and heavy-duty servo motors for a rugged assembly that will be excellent for experimenting. Unlike the small MeArm, the DF Robot arm is capable of lifting a reasonable bit of weight and has an effective gripper mechanism.
It’s also going to be a great platform for mounting sensors. In fact, I already mounted an MPU5060 gyroscope and accelerometer on it, getting prepared for a future project!
The only thing lacking with the kit is instructions, essentially there aren’t any. So hopefully this video and the accompanying article will serve as the missing instruction manual.
Here is the Table of Contents for today's video:
00:00 - Introduction
02:57 - Arm Kit Unboxing
08:26 - Power Supply Considerations
09:52 - DOF Explained
11:48 - Beginning Construction
14:42 - Servo Motor Test
17:11 - Arm Assembly
45:03 - Controller Hookup
47:26 - Controller Code
52:02 - Arm Test
The article goes through the assembly in great detail, I suggest you check it out if you are building this arm (or one similar to it). You’ll also find a ZIP file with the code for the controller in the Resources section of the article. Check it out at https://dbot.ws/5dofarm <.
"Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window." — Steve Wozniak
2021-02-14 6:20 pm
It's been a couple of years now, do you still intend on expanding this project? Hope so.
2024-11-18 3:32 pm
I'm starting to sketch out a project to add kinematics and automation to this project. I want to make sure I'm not repeating prior work. I did a forum search on "Robot Arm" and didn't find anything relevant to such an extension. The idea is to use the Fabrik2D library to replace the potentiometers that control the servos and the automate positioning the arm. I want to substitute an ESP32 for the Arduino and SG90 servos for the more expensive servos. I'm also trying (floundering) to fabricate the chassis with balsa wood.
If there's another project or post on this I'd love to look at it.
The one who has the most fun, wins!
2024-11-18 5:37 pm
@tfmccarthy Did you know you were posting on a topic that is 3.5 years old?
First computer 1959. Retired from my own computer company 2004.
Hardware - Expert in 1401, 360, fairly knowledge in PC plus numerous MPU's & MCU's
Major Languages - Machine language, 360 Macro Assembler, Intel Assembler, PL/I and PL1, Pascal, Basic, C plus numerous job control and scripting languages.
My personal scorecard is now 1 PC hardware fix (circa 1982), 1 open source fix (at age 82), and 2 zero day bugs in a major OS.