It's hard to believe if Flexure joints will be able to apply very high forces needed in aerospace, manufacturing, motion simulators and other applications you are showing.
Where are the 6DOF ? I saw only 3. The final manipulated object can move only up/down, left/right, front/back. It can’t revolve around x,y and z axis, or can it ?
@eblman5218 The Parallel Axis Tripteron Concept" by Rudmin may have the same motion range, but it is full of linear ball bearings and rotating ball bearings. All these bearings have friction, play, backlash and cause rumble due to the imperfect bearing surfaces, Also, The upper arms of the Tripteron carry bending loads, while the upper arms in this video only carry pure tension/compression loads. In other words, the precision and repeatability of the Tripteron are no match for those of this flexure-based mechanism. Additionally: the Tripteron has only TxTyTz translational freedom, while the flex concept has all six DOF's: TxTyTz and RxRyRz.
I was doing some thinking about flexure joints when I happened across a wall hanging device for large flat screen TVs. It is designed to swing out from the wall, and tilt, while remaining stiff in the "Z" axis. They sell millions of them. At first glance it looked like a perfect application for a flexure system. But polymer materials have low yield strengths. The ceaseless pull of gravity on the swing arm would rapidly deform flexible plastics. Although the joint itself would be theoretically "stiff" in Z, the entire apparatus would quickly sag down the wall unless the flexures were made from something like spring steel, which would defeat the cost savings from using monolithic polymer construction.
Polymers are commonly used in the initial phase of designing and printing flexures. The actual joints manufactured in the end are using steel or aluminium 7075. 3D printing metal is also an option but does comprimise some of the material benefits. But just for the record all the polymer use is because of rapid prototyping. There is alot of potential geometries to explore.
@@JasminUwU yeah, but you could build this from max 2 pieces. you want to use bendy parts to reduce the total number of parts, not increase. the springs on my car are bendy... so you say i can make a video just show my car and say : "a compliant mechanism"....
@@frankthiele6539 but your car has gears, so it wouldn't a pure compliant mechanism. Maybe make your own can opener design that is simpler than this if you can.
Those are dissolvable support structures made of PVA (polyvinyl alcohol - water-soluble filament). Such technology is possible with dual-extrusion FDM printers.
Looks amazing. Is it a concept/prototype, or is it going to be actually used for something? It's relatively small, right? How much does the whole thing weigh? :)
