Engineering Design Challenges
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I have this vague idea that there are a lot of talented designers in the SketchUp community who may be looking for interesting projects on which to hone their SketchUp skills.
I just ran across The Open Prosthetics Project which is producing useful innovations in the field of prosthetics and freely sharing the designs. http://openprosthetics.wikispot.org/Front_Page The following two items from that page caught my eye:
If you have ever built anything with LEGO, you'll be fascinated by http://www.openprosthetics.org/myoelectric which has an Articulated LEGO Hand. Be sure to watch the video of it in motion.
Also, the Vector Prehensor is in need of help to detail the 3D motions of this device that, until recently, had been snagged by potential infringement on a 1954 German patent. http://openprosthetics.wikispot.org/Vector_Prehensor
I hope this helps,
August
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hi August,
I think it's a brilliant concept that needs the models sitting in 3D warehouse to reach a wider audience.
I downloaded the Vector Prehensor zip to have a look at doing this, but can't even find a viewer for the .prt files on a mac.
If you or anyone else out there has the software capable of converting the files for sketchup usage that would be fantastic.
I have contacted ResourceCad(.com) to see if they would do it for free, and they are willing to for a credit, but would prefer if the request came from a charitable body so they can write of the man-hours and costs if any.
I'll try and make contact with openprostethics.org and see if they can help out on that front.
In the meantime if we (the forum) could sort the files out ourselves I for one will give it a shot as I've spent a lot of my working life making things like this for films and telly, and have a couple of slightly unconventional ideas that might help.
cheers
john
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Hi John,
I did some digging to see if I could find CadKey or PRT-import for Windows. While I was searching I saw a reference somewhere to Solid Edge reading CadKey, but I could not find that page again, so I downloaded and installed the free version of Solid Edge. (Whew, over 1G installation space needed!) No luck on importing PRT/CadKey and no reference to either in the doc. Oh well.
Apparently, according some stuff I saw, there had at one time been a free version of CadKey available. Google found site descriptions saying they had it, but the ones I tried were dead links and I ran out of steam tonight.
I'm interested in your "slightly unconventional ideas".
Thanks,
August -
hi August,
I've done quite a bit of work utilising MigaMotors, but for some reason I took the YouTubes videos down, I'll resubmit one but here's a link to it on my gallery, the SU is a bit crude, I could probably do a bit better now, I'd only just started to use SU at that stage.
I haven't had a chance to chase up openProsethics yet, but will try this evening, I'm in UK..
john
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ok, thats just plain cool!
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@kxi system said:
ok, thats just plain cool!
cheers, glad someone likes it,
I posted it on another forum, but they're so tied up with traditional solutions for there mechanisms that they dismissed the concept out of hand, these motors only weigh 12.8 grms and deliver 11N of force at 12VDC and move 9 mm in 50 ms (up to 200 mm/s)
I've just posted the the motor .skp on 3D WareHouse as I had one request, here's the link
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=dc06b10e76c0d28fc4ce39a20f5e38ab
in the meantime if anyone can convert the above mentioned files....
john
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I'm impressed - they appear to be low-cost, small, strong, and reliable actuators. There does seem to be some "recovery" time needed for the material to return to shape, in which case I assume it is a uni-directional power stroke?
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@jim said:
"recovery" time needed for the material to return to shape
recovery time is inherent with the material and for the device in my movie, I would have extremely small flexible oil tubes on each stand of wire, which speeds up the return four-fold and multiple units with an over-lap in activation so as the second is pushing the filament thru the first during it's (1st) cooling cycle and the first is pulling the filament thru 2nd during it's cooling cycle, and on and on and on...
If a pair are used end on end, but opposed with centre off, you can achieve zero backlash, high torque, highly positional control.
have a look at http://www.migamotors.com/Downloads.html there are some interesting movies of actual mechanisms.
I've also designed (using SU + a lot of rubies, of course) a few different continuous rotary motors using these, the power to weight ratio is staggering.
john
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@august said:
Hi John,I did some digging to see if I could find CadKey or PRT-import for Windows.
AugustHi August and anyone else watching this topic,
happy new year,
I was just having another look at the files and notice there's a windows CADKEY to DXF convertor enclosed, called ALCADMY.EXC, I don't know if you can run that, I can't on the mac and have no PC access at all, 4 Mac family I'm afraid.
john
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@driven said:
I was just having another look at the files and notice there's a windows CADKEY to DXF convertor enclosed, called ALCADMY.EXC, I don't know if you can run that, I can't on the mac ...
Hi John,
It's hard to believe over a month has gone by and I've kept this page open in my browser all this time. Yes, I have WinXPsp2, so there's a good chance that EXE file will run. I've been meaning to follow up on that, but ... (Life is what happens when you're making other plans.)
I'll be out of town for a week, but hopefully when I get back I'll be able to try this out.
August
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been a bit distracted myself, let me know how get on, maybe we can put together a package for the community at large
john
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