Solidworks Gripper Design by Karl Williams
Designing and creating robot grippers and wrists is something I enjoy working on. Becoming proficient in Solidworks has been a great tool for creativity and realizing designs. The picture above shows a Solidworks rendering of the latest gripper design. Being able to assemble the parts in Solidworks and simulate the movement speeds up the design process. Any miscalculations or wrong dimensions are caught immediately. The last gripper I blogged about was too small for the arm I’m working on right now so I was happy to start designing a new one. This gripper has a smaller parts count, a wider grip of 3-inches and because of the ribs, uses less plastic when 3D printed. I will probably add a top cover as well.
3D Printed Gripper
The gripper was printed with a Makergear M2 3D printer in PLA plastic. Because the design and simulation was done in CAD, the first print was perfect. I will be blogging about the robot wrist soon. Here are the previous gripper related blog entries:
http://www.kwartzlab.ca/2011/05/biotronic-amplifier-project/
http://www.kwartzlab.ca/2012/05/3d-printed-robot-gripper/
Karl P. Williams