Heavy duty arm

[madjack]

Hey group

  Hope you all out there can help me. I am wanting to build a robotic arm to help me with my work. It needs to lift at least 500#. I guess all I need to know is what kind of drives would be best for this application. It does not have to move quickly or be to precise. It will be used to position heavy welded structures for further welding. A pendant control will work fine.

Thanks
Madjack

[Joker94]

My guess for the best kind of drive would be large linear actuators, pneumatic of course. Apart from that i can't think of any thing else.

[madchimp]

Well all of the robotic arms i've seen lifting that kind of weight use servo motors but they need position feed back so they know where they are and can repeat actions very accuratly. If you don't need position feed back and price is a concern usually is lol I would recomend hydraulic cylinders.

[c02cutter]

Arms to lift and manipulate that kind of weight are going to be expensive no matter how you look at it. Also depending on the range of motion and routines you'll need to run as to how complex you will need to be with it. For a repetitive job, a PLC, and hydraulic system may be ok. But for complex movements you'll definitely need to have some sort of processing involved beyond a PLC. I have worked with and programmed Fanuc robots, awesome machines. For a look at their bots go here http://www.fanucrobotics.com/

[ArcMan]

Lincoln Electric also sells industrial robots for welding positioning.  I would check out their site, too.

For that kind of weight, you'll definitely want to buy an industrial robot.

[kd5kfl]

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/category_6970_96+425

[madjack]

Thanks gang i may look into hydraulics since I have experience with it and a lot of components sitting around. This is a warm up for an invention I call the shop buddy.  Something else for you to think about. Kind of on the same lines but 2 or 3 arms and mounted on wheel or tracks to help hold, lift etc. materials for the guy that works alone. Like myself.

[ArcMan]

Cool.
I would like my hydraulic shop buddy to be able to straighten out pieces I weld together after welding, too.  Even using tack welding, I still get some bending issues from the heating/cooling cycle.

[Admin]

500lbs . . . at what arm length?