Society of Robots - Robot Forum
Mechanics and Construction => Mechanics and Construction => Topic started by: dmehling on May 23, 2007, 02:15:17 PM
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In my robotic design, I was wanting to incorporate a vacuum pump mechanism. Do you have any idea where I could find a vacuum pump that I could control with a microcontroller?
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http://www.google.com/search?q=%22vacuum+pump%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
You will need to hack the on/off switch . . . replace it with a MOSFET, where the gate pin is connected to a digital output of a microcontroller.
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Doug Walsh is selling some nice Thomas oilless piston pumps right now for under $100, shipped, at www.build-stuff.com
How much vacuum do you need for what you're doing? There are several other things you can use as vacuum pumps if you don't need a lot of flow.
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I actually don't need very much suction. I am using this for a page turning machine, so probably no more than a few inches of static pressure. I happened to stumble across the robot tutorial for the card shuffling robot which I believe was made by the administrator of this robot forum, and whatever suction pump he used would probably be adequate.
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I just used a suction cup taken off a toy. No air required.