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Finding Parts for Home-Made 'Bots?

Posted by Cliff on from the building-your-own-Bender dept.

Peter DeWeese asks: "For beginners in the field of anatomical robots, it is quite hard to find resources and shops from which to obtain small parts to build joints. Customized ball joints and a few other types are all that should be needed, and I am sure that others out there have built such machines from their own basements. Does anyone have any good resources on how to build/obtain small unarticulated mechanical joints that would be suitable? Please keep in mind that beginners often don't have metal lathes and high temperature welding torches."

4 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. A Couple Of Starting Places by Aix · · Score: 4, Informative
    I would start out looking at Small Parts and McMaster-Carr. These guys have all kinds of stuff. No flame intended, but there are lots of resources out there on the web for this sort of thing. Use Google.

    --
    Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
  2. Matter of degree... by kamandi · · Score: 4, Informative
    A lot depends on how durable/rigid/strong you need the parts to be. There are a lot of great parts available from Lego Technics and other building kits that mimic organic joints. But they don't have the power to lift or hold much. If you really need strength then you are stuck with higher priced alternatives.

    I ended up buying a metal lathe and high temp welding gear after years of frustration trying to find/adapt parts. Metal lathes can be had (for very small parts) for around $150, see the Clisby Lathe. It's easy to spend more than that and you should always count on spending 150% of the price of the machine on tooling for it.

    Casting small parts is also feasible for some solutions, check out the small parts casting info at Micro Mark. It's conceivable that you could use Lego parts as the model for parts you cast in metal (zinc and aluminum are easy but there are lower temp alternatives.)

    The really cool anatomical robot stuff is being done with Air Muscles which can be home brewed with a little ingenuity.

  3. American Science and Surplus by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 5, Informative

    American Science and Surplus sells many small parts that could be used in robots. They have a whole "robot part" section.

    They sell surplus equipment of just about every geek persuasion. Beakers to supermagnets to glow in the dark stickers to discounted microscopes from Russia. Periscopes from WWII Sherman Tanks, white coveralls (with a hood and an input for your oxygen tanks), with witty descriptions for every product.

    Great for geeks, great for robots, great for halloween.

    It's probably one of the funnest geek sites out there, check em out at sciplus.com.

    --
    "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  4. Two words... by majorero · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...Lego Mindstorms

    Seriously! Why build from anything else? Unless of course you're going to be subjecting it to extreme stresses. If not, well then you get motors, gears, joints, an easily programmed controller, etc. You can add a remote, sensors of various kinds and there are a multitude of homebrew and DIY websites out there.

    Good Luck!