I am designing a 4 legged robot right now. Each leg has 3 segments, currently the total length 1 foot per leg total. As such, I need to find something that can lift it from 90 degrees(Perpendicular with earth) to 0 and 180(parallel). The issue is naturally weight though, I am not sure of the building material right now, but I am looking at Acrylic square tubing right now.. if that is the case, then it will be approximately 2/3 lbs a leg without the gears of servos. Total leg weight will be nearly a pound each when it is done. So in order for a servo to lift the leg, it must be able to lift at least 1ft/lbs.
That would require an expensive servo. So I was looking into just gearing them down..
then I came into another problem. You can' necessarily gear down a servo, because of its range. It can only move 180 degrees, If I geared down to a 2:1 ratio its movement would be 90degrees. No good.
So does anyone have any good suggestions for how to create 1ft/lbs of torque without breaking the bank on servos??
Thanks