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A project log for Seiko Robot Custom Controller

Arduino-based replacement Controller for 4-axis 1983 Industrial Seiko Robot

ross-bochnekRoss Bochnek 11/05/2014 at 18:040 Comments

10/11/14

I have been reading the documentation for our blue Seiko industrial robot. It's different from the large yellow Fanuc industrial robot, but is from the same era.

The main thing we need to do to make it even remotely usable is to hack the power supply. Although it probably has a power supply that requires 3-phase 220-240 VAC, Seiko used to offer an alternative PSU, and everything internally seems to run on DC voltage anyway. Even without Seiko's alternative PSU, I think we could use a spare desktop computer PSU + another one or two. All the digital logic seems to use 5 VDC, and the analog circuitry requires 12 VDC; both of which the computer PSU could supply. To make the robot move, the pneumatic solenoid valves require 24 VDC, and servo motors require 60 VDC. Once we can provide 60 VDC, we can probably switch it to the servos via relays.

I'm thinking we may also want/need to hack the robot by providing our own CPU and way of programming it. There are numerous ways to do this, including an Arduino Mega with a computer running Snap or Scratch for Arduino. That way, the robot could be used to teach programming, and almost anyone could do it. We could also get quite advanced, and run Ubuntu with Robot Operating System.

I don't know how much the robot itself weighs, but it's pretty heavy. An unhacked robot can be really, really precise, so they recommend a very level mounting surface, bolting the robot to its table, and the table to the floor. I don't yet know the robot's encoder protocol, but if we can figure that out, I hope we can still have a very precise robot even after hacking it.

I'd like to show our EEs some pages in the robot's documentation, and discuss the possibility of finding power supply units and powering the Seiko up.

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11/18/14

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