22 ms·
Sure. For a while I worked at a company that made props for aircraft and hovercraft. We had a robot arm that painted them. This was about 20 years ago so it was
by lucozade 9y ago
Sure. For a while I worked at a company that made props for aircraft and hovercraft. We had a robot arm that painted them. This was about 20 years ago so it was fairly unusual, at least for me as an engineering student.
The problem was that the software for defining the arcs that the paint gun needed to move through was, well, a bit shit. It always produced inconsistent thicknesses.
Obviously, prior to getting the arm, the props were painted by hand. There was this one chap who was just incredible. He'd move his arm in a motion that followed the contours of the prop perfectly but at such a consistent pace that the paint was laid down beautifully. In the end they gave up with the software and just motion captured his arm movements so they could replicate it. It wasn't as good as he was but was close enough.
BTW my job there was to design jigs for a batch of Spitfire blades that they were building. Someone had commissioned new 'planes to go with some Merlins that had been found at Rolls (if I recall correctly). I worked at Dowty who had made the original blades and landing gear so we were making them from the original blueprints. Was a lot of fun.