5 ms·
This is incredibly cool. The research video showing the little "robots" placing drops of glue to assemble carbon fibers is AWESOME! I haven't been this excited
by cushychicken 5y ago
This is incredibly cool. The research video showing the little "robots" placing drops of glue to assemble carbon fibers is AWESOME! I haven't been this excited by an internet video in months.
My immediate thought: how could this be used to make a really cheap desktop pick-and-place system?
- jacquesm 5y agoGet it to make more little robots! Even smaller ones...
- kragen 5y agoMagnetic drive is poor below the micron scale, but you could switch to electrostatic. No equivalent of diamagnetism to draw on tho.
- nynx 5y agoThere’d have to be some way to temporary bond components to the bots. Regular pick n’ place machines use suction.
- jacquesm 5y agoPut the whole thing in the dark, small solar cells on top and then short circuit them through a coil, that could power a tiny gripper whenever they are lit up.
- ncmncm 5y agoSteer a laser beam over to the robot.
- cushychicken 5y agoI imagine having two little microbots working like tweezers. Theoretically, it's possible to manipulate the field to make one of the robots rotate. Two magnets rotating in tandem could make something like a tiny pair of tweezers.
- jacquesm 5y agoOr have them be asymmetrical, one has the half-tweezer at the left side the frame, the other at the right.
- amelius 5y agoThe problem: there is solderpaste on the board before placement. Therefore, you have to bring the components to the board from above and push them into the solder paste. The suction based pick and place machines are well suited for this task. Tiny robots walking over the board (with lots of obstructions such as solder-paste and through holes) are not such a good match.
- nynx 5y agoActually, I bet this would be possible if the bots had a tiny magnetically actuated suction piston. You’d have to figure out how to create electromagnetic force in the z-direction independently from the x-y force though. Not sure if that’s possible. Heavy components could be held by multiple bots.
- ncmncm 5y agoSuspend the board upside-down above the robots. They just need to smoosh parts on from below. I.e., not practical, but fun to think about.
- cushychicken 5y agoWhy couldn't the bots apply the paste as well? I think of this being a tiny version of a home SMT assembly where you're dispensing paste and placing components manually, one at a time. I also suspect that you can have the target PCB separate from the one the magnets move on.
- goodpoint 5y ago> pick-and-place system Most likely not, but bio/chemical experiments yes.
- gww 5y agoThere's a YouTuber named Stephen Hawes[1] whose made his own pick and place machine. [1] https://youtu.be/6Sa9jNhaRbg https://youtu.be/6Sa9jNhaRbg
- cushychicken 5y agoYeah, but Index prices out at like $500 plus labor to put it together. This has the potential for: * way less material cost * way less assembly, and * way higher reliability due to fewer moving parts
- jacquesm 5y agoAnd potentially higher repeat accuracy because you don't have the rotational joints to deal with. Those are pretty lousy when you get further out from the axis of rotation.
- bsder 5y ago> My immediate thought: how could this be used to make a really cheap desktop pick-and-place system? The limitations of homebrew pick-and-place are the vision system, not the control system. If you solved the vision system problems, you could probably build a pick-and-place out of Legos.
- aspenmayer 5y ago> If you solved the vision system problems, you could probably build a pick-and-place out of Legos. Someone made one, and it’s amazing. https://youtube.com/watch?v=LHsl9jSOO6M https://youtube.com/watch?v=LHsl9jSOO6M