How to Build a 3D Printed Robot Arm Tutorial (Arduino Based) - Part Two 

I program UR Robots at work and I have to say that your controller concept is genius. Having a scaled model that you can actively move makes so much sense. Yes, Freedrive mode is helpful, but it's so awesome to be able to move it in real time like that while also being out of the way. Really awesome project, I'd really like to build it soon.

This is a really nice project, and I am in the process of building it. There are many such projects on RU-vid, but I've yet to see anyone who has then used the arm for a revenue-generating practical purpose.

Looks really good! Can't wait to get the parts and build this.

Just finished building this and the only major improvement I could suggest would be to make all the clamshell pieces have locating features (pins and holes, tung and groove, etc) to make the pieces fit and stay together better.

this is a late comment so I'm not sure if you'll see it, I was wondering what you did for power, other than "connecting it." I think I understand and am capable of building everything else, as you layed it out quite nicely! I'm excited to build this as my first project with my new printer, thank you!

Awesome project brother. Qidi on the other hand are a different story. They offered to donate a used printer to me last year as i lost mine in a hurricane. I was starting a channel to do video lessons for the local makerspace and they lead me on for over 3 months. Then one day said no. I asked them for a discount as i had donated thousands of dollars worth of arduinos and such to the makerspace . I have severe social anxiety due to ptsd from being a first responder, i have a software engineering degree i never used and found that getting back into coding and building stuff helped me so i wanted to help others and help myself at the same time as I've barely left the house in a decade and figured it would help me get over the anxiety. They crushed me and i gave up on the whole thing, they could've said no or just give me a discount or not have lead me on for so long. I was looking for a good printer and had enough to buy a crappy one or a decent xmax (i was 200 short of the retail price) and i wanted to buy proper recording gear. I ending up being soured on 3d printing for 6 months and bought a new guitar and oscilloscope instead and donated the rest. I send arduino learning kits anywhere in Canada or the US for free. I include a decent multimeter, soldering station, aalong wirh a ton of other stuff. All i ask is that the person be genuine with not having the means to get it themselves and if they dont like the hobby to let me pay postage for the dmm and soldering station as i spend over 200 on those two items alone. Ill help people if they want to learn but there are no strings attached. Seeing them sponsor people triggers me hard because of the dishonesty. Every video wouldve mentioned them and i was just looking for a discount. I respect the fact if someone said no as well. I havent solicited any companies for charity since. I spend half my disposable income on helping others. Enabling others is a better way to look at it as i dont even need to know the person's name. Being a good, honest person is no better than being a criminal these days. Being honest is more important and saying what you're thinking (while treating others in a way youd like to be treated) seems to stop the most outspoken person in their tracks if it means they have to say no to something when asked. I could see if it was in person and i put them on the spot. Qidi sent a friend their most expensive printer and he gave it a 2 minute review and threw it away. (It was too expensive to ship as i was going to buy it). Theyd rather that then to be known as caring about the community, even the ones who keep us safe at night and now suffer from illnesses that will never go away. Another creator friend threw their printer out a 2 story window in a short after an interview. He was moving and lived too far away to ship it as well. I hope they read this. Im disappointed more than anything. I still plan to purchase a printer off them as well. But anonymously with my wife's Amazon account. If you know anyone who wants to get into the hobby or would like a robot arm kit like the awesome one you shared, just email me. I have all the parts. It can go through you if you want. Ill laser engrave the acrylic too and add leds to the kit haha. Thanks for the content.

printing as we speak looking forward to build this project

Can you please make a mini tutorial for the controller, so that I know I am doing everything right.

Love Beastiarum! Even better to see the models painted and played with!

Awesome build and tutorial! Well done! I'm looking forward to see the next project!

Awesome Video Man. Thank you so much for making such a detailed video. Go Engineerrs Baby !!!!

AWESOME project! the best robotic arm I've ever seen on RU-vid. The description contains a file with 25 3D elements is that all that is needed to build it?

Could you be fixing that you could be programming the moves? So it actually memorise the moves? And you could just lean back meanwhile the robot are doing the preprogrammed things? For example adding some more buttons. Button one: You are moving the arm direction Z, X, Y When you are not pushing the button anymore, it stops. But you could also be pushing second button for the gripper and memorise that too?

Your tutorials are easy to follow and the quality of the movement is great! congrats on doing this w/ only a single arduino file ha! outstanding intro for any makers w/out a ton of programming experience. i2c w/ the PCA9685 is great and scalable. I'm curious if you have any upgrade vids planned. I don't see signs of filtering the servo data in adafruit's default driver code - I imagine that could be a great technique for folks too. I'd also consider capacitors and sharing the STEP files? Eliminating glue and adding inset hex nuts to the main parts would make this extremely serviceable

Great job!! Awesome build for a simple robot. The tutorial was great too. Thanks!

First of all i wanted to thank you for the thorough walk through and the detailed explanations. This is my first "big" project in electronics i am doing. I have a small question that might come off a bit unknowledgeable. For this project i need a power source/supplier. How do i pick my power source? Do i get a battery? an adjustable power supply (that seems the best choice but also most expensive). How do I know what Voltage and current i need to supply in this type of project? Thank you very much!

Hi @build Some Stuff. Nice projects and thanks for sharing. One quick question, why is the wrist potentiometer wired differently? Based on the video (5:14) the positive and ground wires are swapped compared to other potentiometers. This is different from the schematic. Would appreciate your help on this. thanks.

Me and a couple friends managed to assemble this whole thing for a school project, however we're running into an issue where when we upload the code, none of the other servos move as the potentiometer does. We tested all of the potentiometers' connection without plugging into the servo driver and it reads, but as soon as we hook everything up to the driver only the microcontroller for the gripper functions properly. Some help would be greatly appreciated, thanks for the great tutorial!

Really cool project nearly finished mine myself, one of my servos going the opposite was to the potentiometer controller and just figuring out how to fix, any ideas would be amazing thx

amazing cant wait to build it !!! 😛

nice work👍

Just excellent!... Thanks. Liked... already Subscribed.

Thank you so much for this video! I've learned so much and you are amazing for keeping this open source. I'm super new to electronics so I ran into an issue with the micro servo for the gripper. When I press the button the servo doesn't move. It will move the 90 degrees to close at the beginning (line 28 of the code) but won't move beyond that. When I switched it out with a regular servo (MG996R) everything ran fine and the button opened/closed the gripper. Plus the pin 13 test light turns on/off when the button is pressed, so I'm confused. Wiring isn't the issue either since when I connect the micro servo to the pins controlled by a potentiometer, the micro servo runs perfectly. I've tried to troubleshoot: I've assigned the micro servo to different pins on the driver board, re-copied the code over, and, checked the voltage with a multimeter (it was within the correct range for the servo), but I'm still sort of stuck. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Beautiful work.. from an 'old' maker to a 'new' one! The only thing I would add, use silicone grease on all gears and moving 'sliding' components. I was planning on making a third hand for my bench like this. I may use your arm. Currently, I have a modified Inmoov arm helping out but while it looks cool, this is much more practical. Thank you for sharing this! subscription well earned! I am curious, what made you blow 3 servos? programming over limit or load issue?

Congrat! awesome project, I will do it, question: why one of the servos is hi torque 20kg? can i use only Mg 996R? and at the time to upload code from arduino, how must to be the potenciometers? what position? you showed the position of mini arm controler, and said in started position, but we can't see the position of the potenciometers. Thanx so much!

nicely done

I got this working, but my hand servo doesn't move and the smaller arm with the pentiometers doesn't move the bigger arm unless I hold the button down, when the button should control the smaller servo for the hand. Any ideas where I went wrong?

hello I have been trying to build this robot but for 1-2 weeks but yet still can't find out why my servo motors don't move when I am ready to put it in the starter position I did unscrew all the parts like in the video and also screw them back on like 10 times just to find out the reason on why it won't work I am thinking it is because of the wire's they are probably miss placed on my end from either the control or from the boards can anyone help me out here I would really apricate it thank you.🙂

Hello, great project and I’m very interested in building it, however I am struggling to find the wiring diagram on the link you have in the description

hello, i decided to make this project, and i started to buy the pieces, print the parts but icant find the code. someone help me? i cant see the code in printables(sorry for bad english, (from turkey))

It still doesn't work, if I only plug in the Power the driver doesn't turn on, but I've tested it with an LED an there is power, but the driver doesn't turn on. But if I plug in the Arduino the driver turns on but the voltage is missing an the servos do nothing. Could anyone help me 😢

the servo boards in your amazon list aren't the same in the video

Hello very well made design. I have only one question about power supply so I read 7V power supply enough but what current works well. I have two options 5A and 10A? thanks in advance

Hey creator, it’ll be a awesome idea if u made a 6+ axis robot, I might improve on this design as well

Hello, I’m Abo it to put everything together. Just wanted to ask, when you plug the Arduino in to upload the code, do you also plug in the power supply at the same time so the servos work, or will that be too much voltage and fry something?

Can you make a tutorial on how to model this beast?

Hello, the maximum voltage for the pca9685 (servo driver board) is 6 volts yet you still supply it with 7, how?

Great project, how come the ground and 5v on the top potentiometer are wired opposite to the other 4 ?

so your diagram is ground to ground on the pots, but it looks like on your mini arm, your ground wrist goes to vcc on the elbow? am i missing something, cause it looks like your diagram doesnt match the physical robot.

BRAVISSIMO 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Great video! I only have one question, how many Volts and Amps do i need to use it? Have a nice day!

everything works but only 2 servos move but when they do they twitch. idk why and iv been trying to find the probem for a while now but i cant

Ok so i built it but a bit of issue. My servo keeps spinning instead of stopping at a position of the potentiometer. Any help?

I notice that when wiring the pots on the controller you wire the left hand pin on the 'wrist' pot to the right hand pin on the 'elbow' pot. and I notice that the elbow to shoulder pots are wired left pin to left pin and right pin to right pin. Is there a reason for the inversion of the wrist to elbow wiring? I am pretty new to wiring, just want to make sure i do it right. Thanks again for tutorial!

My guys doesn't care about RU-vid Meta , uplodings each week to boost your channel and hype people about projet ...; nahh he 'aint got time for that , he got to Build Some Stuff 😄

Im new to 3D printing and this is amazing! How did you manage to screw your 3d parts in? Did you just brute force them through the holes?

El primer problema que tube al armarlo es la sensibilidad de los potenciómetros los cuales se me arruinaron demaciado rápido y los tenia que cambiar muchas veces, algo recomendable para esto?

do you think you can build a car with robot arms on the sides?

I’m just a fellow 8th grader who was successfully able to make this project! I just have one query, what should we do if the servo motors just break? Could anyone help? Thank you!

If you have a gaming laptop - would be very interested to see if you could replicate Mobile Aloha style training.

how are the 3 gears connected in the wrist? i have glued one gear to the gripper part but the gear doesnt potrude far enough through the side plate to mesh with the other gears if that makes sense. in part 1 that seems to be the case for you but in part 2 its no longer an issue

for some weird reason, all potentiometers are connected to the wrong servos and the servos are shaking because 1 the power is to high or too low or 2 the pedometers are stupid, and I will have to replace the small arm and re-wire. you should have added a resistor to the LED in the tutorial because mine brunt out 2 times. does anybody have any suggestions about how to make the servos stop shaking.

does the middle gear engage both gears left and right?

Can i use the same 20 kg servo that you use at the base for all the other servos(i didn't pay attention at the start and bought 4 of the 20kg servos in the description😂)? i have yet to complete the build but i am afraid that i may have to change the code and i don't know anything about programming. Also i love your videos.

You use two power supplies. One for the Arduino and one for the servo controller, right? What would be their voltage and amps? Can anyone help me with this question?

hey bro i am from india & your video and explanation is very very excellent and How do I contact you?

I finally got it all hooked up but i'm having an issue with the gripper.. when i push the button it will open up but when i release it it just stays open forever, any idea what could be wrong? in the serial log it prints released and pressed correctly but it just doesn't move the servo

I have a question, im so down because my Arm doesn't work. To what Voltage do I have to set the Adjustable Power Supply?

how many volts/amps should be supplying through the t plug? many thanks

nice moves!

I’m at the step where you have to put the button into the controller. But it seems my button has… well… prongs on the back? I can’t fit it in there, as you don’t show it in the video. The prongs make it impossible to fit in there. Do I have the wrong button? Do I bend the prongs? Does the button need a depression? Please tell me, me and my friend are so confused. 5:07 Sorry if Im being stupid, but we are new to this. We don't really have any background knowledge of electronics.

hello i have been wanting to make a robotic arm but i always find it so complicating thankfully this video has been very helpful but i have no idea how he assembled the controller can someone pls share the diagram or like explain it to me

when i plugged it in the power supply started smoking, any idea what the issue would most likely be ?

One more thing, how could I make the controller have motors instead, and have a claw instead of a button, any idea on how I could do that?

Do you have like a list of bom for all nuts and bolts used?

Is it safe to share ground pin of servo driver board and Arduino board? Could there be potential ground loop? (I don't know much about circuit designs)

Great video, and beautiful robot! But I'm curious ... why you are using the library from Adafruit? Why not do something more straightforward with built-in Arduino functions (such as using map() to connect the inputs to the outputs)?

the micro servo cant overcome the strength of the rubber band apparently (bought the ones in the recommendations list). It can push the hands apart just fine without it there, but gets stuck and whines when the rubber band is on

how big could i scale this to . I know loaded question but I have decent mechanical knowledge and I can fix simple issues. Any tips if i wanna make a very large one. Thanks.

how many collective hours of printing is the robot arm and mini robot arm?

if one were to want to record positions off of the controller to create a program and run it, what would need to be added to this design?

can i do this but without 3d printing? i could make it out of cardboard and spray paint it but the design needs to be changed

you are the best

I've built the project. sadly its not working as expected currently. only the base servo and the shoulder servo and hand servo are moving in response to the controller. however the movements are a bit erratic, some movement mimics the movement of controller but then the servo will move the other way and sometimes the servo is sort of twitching even when the controller is perfectly still I have tested continuity for all the wires coming from the pots right to the arduino so ruling out any failed connections. Also the hand servo is constantly in motion until i press the button and it stops until i release again. i'm assuming i've wired this the wrong way round. i worked around this by changing the code to if(pushbutton == HIGH) instead of LOW Has anyone else had similar issues? I'm new to wiring and electronics so any help would be appreciated. Is there any program i could use on my arduino to see if my arduino is picking up the changing values of my potentiometer signal. Many thanks

Heya, I'm in the final throws of the project and I've hit a brick wall of an issue and I was wondering if there's any advice available. I've wired everything up as shown and downloaded the code to the arduino. I've powered it up with a external PSU but all the servos (appart from the gripper servo) seemingly are fluctuating about 5-10 degrees before cylcing back. I'm guessing there's electrical noise somewhere in the setup somewhere, but I'm unsure where to look! Any ideas :)

Hello, I'm from Spain and I find all your videos very interesting. I have a 3D printer and some Ardyino parts to be able to assemble it, but I don't know how to program it. Is there a way to copy your program?

question, do i have to have potentiometer at a particular position when attaching to the controller body?

What do you think? Any odea how to add a bluetooth tx to get it wireless?

Hi! I ha e build the robot same way you did. I have a problem with power distribution. If I power the robot over the servo board, nothing is working. No lights no movement. If I power it over the arduino, lights are up, but still no movement. Wiring is correct and solid. I use a 9v power source .any ideas?

I noticed one of the wires isn't the same as on the diagram

Can someone tell me with what he powers the robot? I have his power source but when I turned the first time, it started smoking. And we all know that electronics run with smoke and if it comes out it's not a good thing

Hey, I have a question. Is the code that is shown on video the only code you need? Or is there more to it?

can I use micro servo motors for the wrist and hand instead of the normal ones

Bro in upcoming days can make a record and play function for this robotics arm

what awg wire did you use ?

First electronics project...... I think ive blown 2 servo boards. Had the servo boars plugged in while uploading code to the Arduino Could this jave overpowered and blown the board?

Is it posible to change positions to do a routine?

how do you attach the button on the controller? just glue it ?

Thanks for this tutorial.. I have got one problem..the MG996R servo doesn’t stop after move the Controller and keeps rotating in the some direction of the potentiometer..? But the servos stops after return the controller to start position! I tried to change the code and control each servo separately but the same problem..However,the Micro servo motor works just fine and follows the potentiometer.. Can you help please.. With All Thanks 🙏🏻

Hello, I made this and I’m getting shaking from my servos they are the 20kg ones the strong ones. I’m using a variable desktop power supply which should have plenty of power. Any thought on what’s causing this?

Do you use two power supplies? one for the servo controller and one for the Arduino, right? What is their voltage and amps? Can anyone help with this doubt?

how much power are we suppose to give the system?

Nice project. Can I also use an arduino Nano instead of an Arduino Uno?

Hi, I'm in the process of making this project, but I'm having some issues. When I connect the controller with the arm it doesn't really work, it's like it isn't receiving the signal of the potenciometers, I've checked the wiring but I don't see any mistakes in it. I really don't know what to do anymore

Could i use a higher voltage power supply like a 12 volt or would i be able to use a buck-down converter to make it 7 volt? also is wattage gonna be a issue if i do this?

did you desgin all of this robot by yourself?

is there a way to make the controller wirless?

Great project man. I have a question about the male T plug connector. what is that connector connected too, power wise?(battery, outlet, laptop supply, stand alone power supply). Thanks again for the concise videos.

It's amazing!!! Congrats!!! Beautiful and useful project!! I'll use with my postgraduate students!!!

In theory can you record movements of the small arm. save the movements and later with arduino recreate the movements with big arm? (Sorry I have zero experience with this kind of stuff) BTW nice job (Y)