| Merlin Robot | |
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Not too long ago Ken was lucky enough purchase an American Robot
Merlin robot arm. Costing less than a hefty collection of Lego
Mindstorms, the Merlin is a powerful peice of machinery. The system
was near complete, missing only two axis controllers and the host
computer. The folks at American Robot have been very helpful in
answering questions about the system. The fact it came with
complete documentation was also a bonus. Ken has been working on replacing the missing commercial control system with some homebrew technology. At the exact point of this writing the following has been done: The arm has indeed moved, running from single phase power. This creates less DC power than using the optimal 3 phase mains power. The control was being performed from a Linux system using a test program Ken wrote. Ken is working on visualization / control software for the arm. The interface hardware is still an issue, as a solution for real-time control has to be developed. The stepper motors and optical feedback system are very high resolution and require precise control. More to come in the future on this project!  This is the system before it was brought home. Main robot arm, a table with pnumatic controls, and the rack of control hardware. |
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