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P1 - Lego compatible drag feeder

Modular Pick and Place drag feeder you build to suit, on a Lego sheet.

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This project is a 3D printable Lego compatible base, with a drag feeder component top.

Lego pins are spaced at exactly 8mm. SMT component reels are provided in widths which are always increments of 4mm. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

Sub-project of  the Arcus-3D-P1 Pick and place for 3D printers project.

Project designed in OpenSCAD and rendered out to printable files via script.  Source and output files are up on Github.

The base for this was designed to snap on a Lego sheet at both full and half post spacing.  This lets you pick any required tape width using the same base, and quickly build any feeder configuration you may need.  As a bonus, using the sheet gives you an indexed location for each part pick point, without needing to re-tune each one when you move them.

The mount itself was designed with a bending interface, much like real Lego blocks, so it can tolerate a rather large range of over/under extrusion and still work.  This is much better than the simple interference fit which I started with.

Each block is printed as two parts.  This lets you print the base on it's side, which is much stronger, and which then allows for the bending block - post interface.  The top covers can be then be printed flat and so no bridging or overhangs are required.

  • Push it.

    Daren Schwenke09/21/2018 at 08:58 0 comments

    The changes looked good.  I've re-rendered everything and pushed it up to Github.

  • Iteration

    Daren Schwenke09/13/2018 at 22:06 0 comments

    I have a 3D printer again, so I printed some of these out.

    The pins were too small between the base and the top bit to print reliably.  I've made them bigger.

    I also corrected the math for positioning the pick and feed holes so it scales correctly for different tape widths.

    I'm printing them out again before I post the updated code, but the C1 end effector still has a couple hours to go for it's latest revision.

  • Drag feeder scripting

    Daren Schwenke09/02/2018 at 02:04 0 comments

    I took the time to automate the generation of the STL files for the drag feeder.

    The parts for the other related projects are pretty much one-offs, but for the drag feeder, I have to render things out at a number of heights and lengths so it made sense.

    Updated source and the rendered files are now up on Github.

  • Lead in, lead out.

    Daren Schwenke09/01/2018 at 23:22 0 comments

    Made the source more modular and added lead in and lead out angled bits on the parts so the tape won't get hung up on the edge from a slight misalignment.

    Source is updated in the Github.  Have not rendered the new models yet to match.  Later today.

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Arya wrote 09/02/2018 at 07:55 point

Will be waiting for real-life photos!

  Are you sure? yes | no

Daren Schwenke wrote 09/02/2018 at 09:05 point

Yeah, so am I at this moment.  :) I still got about 6 hours of work left to get my printer back up and running.  

The Lego base part is already perfect as I've iterated on that previously and I have it dialed in to tolerate a pretty good range or over/under extrusion and still work. The rest should be a no-brainer.

  Are you sure? yes | no

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