Week 9 and 11 ( March 27, 2017 )

 

Mechanical Design  ( Group )

Assignment :

In this assignment, there is two weeks as the task is a group project.

Mechanical design(week 1 of 2)

Make a machine, including the end effector, build the passive parts and operate it manually.

MACHINE DESIGN (week 2 of 2)

Automate your machine. Document the group project and your individual contribution.

Introduction

Before starting this week, our group started a discussing the process of implementing this week task. We did voting to choose the group leader for Machine Design project Muhammad Almutori. Afterward we did brain storming session about the ideas of a 2-axis CNC machines. Some proposed doing plotter machine with pen holder. I proposed a X-Y shafts with an arm moves in Z axis to pick up toys or stuff, the arm moved by gears as follows. Many of them came with different ideas and finally decided to make a a mechanical machine based project with  2 axis motion.


Our project is called “Find Me” and you can read more about it in this page : http://archive.fabacademy.org/archives/2017/fablabkuwait/team/team1.html , the idea summery is soldering components frame that could be used for circuit components cabinet which allow the user to find the required component by typing the name of the component and an LED light will move in an X & Y axis to the required drawer.

My Contribution :

 

 

 

I need to work with  the team of testing and execution. Firstly one of our group member brought old damaged 3D printer. De assembling the printer is done by the Assembling team.

 

As I came under in testing and execution team,I started my assigned work  in the beginning of mechanical stuff assembling itself.

 

suggested 3D designing and Assembling team regarding many changes to be made in 3D printed parts. I measured the size of rod used to connect between the ends.

 
 

As the  rod measurement of rod  was 8. mm and the 3D printed part was not getting fixed inside it. It was coming outside easily.

 

So what the problem was the slot or the hole for rod to get inserted was the same measurement that of rod.

 

 

I suggested to reduce the size of hole by at least more than 1mm .So the designing team made the corresponding changes and the part was 3D printed. They tested with different measurement by varying slightly to get exact fit size what I showed here in the image.

Also for testing the motion two holed structure for shaft and rod was redesigned instead of the part shown  earlier.

 

The horizontal movement motor holder was designed  in such a way that It hold the motor and  as well as the Rods and the rotating shaft for the other side movement as shown in below image.

 
 

 
 

 

But the problem with  this is that this will not be getting enough stability while the shaft attached to this part starts  moving. And also the slots(locations planned to move) will become small.

So this part is changed with another design as shown below.

 

Since the rods are fixed in bottom part. The problems are solved and it became more stable.

Also I pointed out the non perfection in the new printed part as shown. Then the new part was also made again with best value.

 
 

This part shown in red material was used instead of the earlier to attach stepper, Shaft and rod. I made sure that rods and shaft with bearings fixed well inside the part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see that the stepper was placed by attaching the glue by glue gun. This was used while testing. I measured the stepper size and then the corresponding stepper holding part.

 

 

 

 

 

There was difference in between the motor holding slot and motor size. So that is the reason why it was necessary to add more glues.

For testing it was fine. I pointed out these problems and verified that it  is corrected.

 

I checked with the assembling team before  assembling and pointed out the things I noticed at different times including these.3d printing team and designers  discussed these issues and they cross checked the things. So further errors  will be less. Many times the 3D printing was not fine due to the Filament and the machine calibration issue.

So designers adjusted the design parameters to overcome the errors and then Machine was calibrated well to avoid the errors.

Then members assembled the parts with mechanical stuffs and verified that it works.

 

 

 

The picture shows the assembly of mechanical parts before and after testing .  The attachment of acrylic and other wiring are done through different steps.

 

In the below video, Hussain kamal is describing how the failure of mechanisms are found and sorted out.

 

 

 

 

I also  participated in assembling of different  parts and testing at different stages. I helped Ahmad al saleh in different stages of testing.

I have understood many new things as I involved in this group project. Then the things needed to make a two axis machine and various levels to execute to achieve this,

More progresses , videos, detailed documentation and different attempts are described in the group project documentation by documentation team.

Group project Link here