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Extended Reach PopCan Pickup

A project log for Anatomy of a Claw

Breakdown of the Claw Mechanism

willbadenwillbaden 10/22/2014 at 01:490 Comments

After a few trials of the claw to pickup cans with short extensions (removing the longer brake line fingers and using the intermediate linkage with short extensions as the fingers), there was a need to extend the reach out further. Deciding to extend the reach out 3 inches would allow for the popcan to be picked up lower. Here is the part being machined:

I have been searching for a cheap CAM/CAD program and ended up using CamBam. This has a free 40 time trial use and after the use, will limit the output to 500 lines. Or it can be purchased below $200. This seems like a fair price for what it can do. It is able to act as a CAD program, the post processor can be modified (to an extent), and it outputs usable G code for FANUC controllers. All of which I was looking for. Granted it is no GibbsCAM, but it does get the hobby jobs ran.

The part was radius'd on one end and 5 holes were center drilled. I used a drill press to finish the part for trial. Once assembled and tested, I found that the extension was enough that the solenoid lost its leverage and did not allow for the claw to fully close (where the most pull is seen on the plunger of the solenoid). I plan on modifying the extensions to allow for full closure on the popcan (or at least close to it).

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