In this project I will show you how I made a robotic gripper that is controlled by a Arduino and is fully 3D printable. The project is based of the open source robotic arm that jjshortcut posted on instructables over 8 years ago you can check his project out here.
3D print
All the parts used are 3D printed I took the open source projects DXF file
and opened itin ink scape. I then separated all the individual parts and
deleted the ones I didn't need I then saved each part individually and
used a online SVG to STL converter. Once converted I set the height to
5mm for all the parts apart from themain grippersthat I set at a 10mm
height
I Then opened the STL files in Curan and saved it to theSD card and
printed all the parts.
Assembly
Once all the parts were printed I then used a 3mm drill to enlarge
the holes in the parts as they were slightly under size. I then had
to file some of the slots to make all the parts fit together will.
I used M3 bolts and M3 nyloc nuts to attach the parts together.
I attached the servo to the 3D print using really small self tapping
screws. I then attached the 3D print to the end of the servo motor
also using small self tapping screws.
I also used double sided tape to stick some rubber belt to
the end of the gripper so that it has more grip when picking up things.
The controller
I decided to use a Arduino UNO to control the servo. The
circuit is very simple just connect the positive of the
servo to 5v and the negative to ground then the signal
wire to pin 9.
Once the servo is connected connect a potentiometer to
analogue pin 0 then once side of the potentiometer to
ground and the other side to 5v.
Then I uploaded the code by connecting the Arduino to
thecomputer and compiling then uploading it to the
Arduino.
Now that everything is connected and programmed when
you turn the potentiometer knob the gripper will open and
close. This gripper could be attached to a robot arm to
make it pick things up.