Now that we have more or less finished putting the exoskeleton together, we decided to move on with deciding where to place and secure the motor. We are currently working with the idea of placing the servo motors on our forearm. This will reduce the wire length required and reduce problems of tangling. We are planning to fix our motors onto a box which would be placed on the arms, so we designed custom motor housings to fix the motors.
Initially, we were thinking of putting all the motors into one box, but it turned out that the box looked too chunky. In fact, the box that we printed (Figure 1) couldn’t even fit all the motors in. Hence, we tried thinking of an alternative design.
Figure 1: Initial Box Design. On the left is the first print on a magnetic bed which somehow caused an uneven bed. On the right is the second print, but proved to be not feasible.
*picture of first motor housing design to be updated*
Figure 2: Initial housing design
Figure 3: Motor Housing (for 2 Motors)
Figure 4: Motor Housing (for 2 motors) with Motors Placed
To prevent bulkiness, we are planning to have 3 motors placed inside the box for the index, middle and ring fingers (arranged as seen in Figure 3). Our box will have various holes to allow for tubes to run to the spools of our motors. These tubes will allow nylon wires to run through to allow for the wires to coil and uncoil neatly around the spool. As for the other two motors for the thumb and the picky, they will be attached on the sides of the forearm attachment instead. More details on this will be figured out and posted on in future posts!
Figure 5: Vision for Interior of the Box with Motor Housing
As our box design is still printing, we will update on the design on the box in the future as well!