Optimising a 3D Printed Robotic Actuator 

What were the advantages/disadvantages of that eccentric cycloidal planetary gearbox?

the editing of this video is just pure chaos 🤣....from just removing hydraulics out of the picture to how straightforward and blunt you were with the gear assemblies....that was greta man you win a sub

Amazing video and a awesome detailed explanation. Very usefull and entertaining too! I'm looking forward to see more of this!!

incredible work, can't wait for your channel to take off with more content!

This is amazing! Well done!

This is really amazing stuff, can't wait to see more!

this is unbelievable. amazing job

30 seconds in and i've subscribed. You're doing a great job. keep it up

This is amazing. Great work. Can't wait to see more!

Not a second wasted! Rare gem of a channel, had to subscribe. Funny when you pointed out the low waste on the 3D print, so disconnected from the objective

Would love to hear more explanations of concepts for those of us who are not experienced in this field, looks very interesting!

Thank you for saving me months of experiments! Gears it is.

Great project and a very well explained video! Would love to see more! And would like to see details about the material used and the printer settings.

Can't wait to see that robot walks around :)

pretty awesome, can't believe youtube just now recommended this video when all i've been watching is stuff like this....

Awesome video. Loved hearing your thoughts on the various drive mechanisms. You gained a new subscriber! I'm curious to hear what the torque efficiency, backlash and wear/tear looks like. I'm building something similar (with the exact same motor) but with belts.

Subscribed! I've been building my own BLDC motors, axial flux ones. One of their advantages is more efficient use of electromagnetic flux -a lot of the flux in these radial designs seems to go straight out the side of the motor, Hallbach array on the magnetic circumference would probably help concentrate magnetic 'juice' inwards where it can do more work... Looking forward to seeing more of your robot and what it can do!

This is soooo cool 😮😮😮😮

yo the amount of stuff you had to have expertise in is kinda mindboggling to me, sensors/navigation + material sience + mechanical engineering + software development + control systems + genetic algorithms(?), insane (for a dude with a 3D printer)

Absolutely wonderful. I just got my first resin printer. I can't wait to start making this stuff! Are your designs available for download?

fascinating

Subscribed ❤

This guy out of nowhere... great actuator design, very fair price too

awesome. nice design! i'm working on a 1kg barell gear that can output 200Nm with petg cos it's forgiving of printing imprecision. You can use steel tubes inside plastic gears and angle grind a criss cross pattern in them and then use a glue to glue the plastic gears onto the steel tube, the gears need a stellar or internal gear pattern to fuse properly, i dunno what the best glue is.

I applaude for lightness, efficiency, simplicity, and force! Just a thought, put up your design to some world wide shipping website/manufacturer so, that instead of CAD-files, we could buy the product. =) At some point I'd need a robot for experimenting and I like your design goals. Big up from FI!

Great work. I want to see more of it in action! Are you still testing and working on programming a run without supports?

Great video! This is now listed as my fav robot leg design. At the end of the video, you are training the robot in simulation. Mind already telling us what program you use for the simulation, i.e. PyBullet etc? And the algorithm you prefer.

Ok you are amazing. Keep up with the good work. I would loooove to see a video of the AI simulated world u teased a the end of the video. Please show this walking

The training video at the end 😆

nice !!!!

Nice build! I am curious to know how the backlash of motors translate to the foot or ankle. You can lock the rotors and push the ankle to measure. It is okay to have some play tho if you are doing force control. Also, when you do locomotion control, the robot will definitely freak out at one point, and if it hits something hard (like ground), it could break weakest point along the transmission (usually the pinion). Under 1kg is absolutely amazing, but I am curious to know if it would survive real world testing.

if you buy the files is there a video or a tutorial on how to make it the actuators?

Interesting.

This is really cool. Would love to see more. What sim is shown at the end of the video?

Sick stuff! Do you find that having that much torque makes it easier to design a motor controller? Of course, it's back-drivable, so I imagine that would also make it much easier to do IK and whatnot. Actually, speaking of which... that software sneak preview with the different agents all running around. You wouldn't happen to be working on a learning-based agent, would you?! I'm super stoked to see where you take this project!

Loving this project; what kind of drivers, controllers, and protocols are you using?

How did you replace the shaft of the brushless motor to power it from the other side?

That actuator seems crazy strong ! , Definitely what is needed for a competent legged robot

That is a really cool actuator, good work! Just one question what backlash does the gearbox have? From what I know cycloidal, harmonic and belted gearboxes are specifically used because of their low backlash characteristic. Multi staged geared gearboxes, especially 3d printed ones, usually have quite a lot of play, which disqualifies them for a use in precision robotics.

mmmm i m gonna follow this, i m surprised by the torque / speed ratio

what driver are you using? Odrive? I would love to see the training possess are you using Isaac sim because I could never get that to work properly?

do you know how much backlash these actuators have? Thank you

cool actuator, mind sharing the print files? im sure i could model something myself but i'm just interested in experimenting for now so it would be a huge timesaver.

I wish you showed the complete assembly with motor, housing etc. Will have to look At your website

I know bldcs have pretty high specs on paper but aren't like BD hydraulic actuators actually a lot stronger in terms of peak usable power? I mean like they make a giant metal robot jump and do cartwheels... Not to throw shade. You are doing awesome work!

I don't have numbers of the competing actuators to compare with yours but I have a feeling they are not as much worse in strength to weight as you might think. Usually industrial actuators are not rated at peak torque/power values the way you are rating yours - they usually have a significant margin of safety. I'm sure your actuator costs a lot less to produce in low volume, and its impressive what it can do. But I have my doubts about longterm dimensional stability of plastic gears, and the space efficiency lost compared to other actuators.

Nice! How do you mount the motor? inside the ring? How do you then get the output to rotate? Was thinking of making something similar but belt driven instead. Also, how powerful are your motors (as in how may watts, amp and volt they run on)?

😂😂😂😂😂😂This guy makes some crazy claims lol!

We use conventional cycloid drive gearboxes on our robots (FIRST Robotics Competition). These are almost fully 3D printed in PETG but we do use steel pins on the perimeter and for the output. Our current robot has a couple of 24:1 Cycloids about 4" dia and a 48:1 that's about 6" dia. We use two rows of Delrin balls (1/8" dia) at the perimeter to provide a smooth rotation (instead of expensive X-bearings). The cams run in small, deep groove ball bearings. The secret to their success is that we use three cycloid gears in each gearbox, each spaced at 120 deg to the other. This provides almost 100% tooth contact and eliminates vibration. Have you tried anything like this? I suspect that our 24:1 could handle more torque and looks to be about 1/3 of the size of your actuator. The downside is that it does have many more parts. I love the simplicity of your design. Be glad to share if you are interested. Cheers.

That cycloidal gearbox with the rollers looks very interesting, I have seen similar systems in the past but no matter what I google I cant find another example or explanation. Do they have an official name? why did you not use it? what was its flaws?

💖💖💖💖

Awesome! Bought one. Why not vesc controller?

How do the reduction gears stand with long time usage? Have you noticed a lot of erosion?

After making a bipedal robot with the actuators you designed, will you make a similar quadrapedal robot? How about a similar humanoid robot?

Very much loving your designs! I've yet to venture into dc motors because of the expense and complexity with the actuators, but using servos has so many disadvantages in comparison, you've helped inspire me to take the plunge soon! Any plans to release the cad files or are they available somewhere?

Holy shit!

Sensored or sensorless brushless motors? I have issues with low rpm cogging even with high reductions. Brushed motors have max torque at low rpm but there are other drawbacks

Are you using some sort of custom FOC controller for this or some off-the-shelf part?

In terms of carrying capacity, a multistage gearbox is not as good as a planetary gearbox. What do you think

Oooh! Instasub!

What outrunner motor is that?

So what is the max torque? And how much weight can that arm actually lift? I feel clickbaited, the thumbnail and all the leadup and no actual numbers...

I’m designing a robotic dog. Might use something like this

This is probably how IG-11 works

Here's a cool fact: humanoid robots should do 100ds of different tasks, tea, washing, carrying, tidying... Garden robots just need to do 5 jobs that machines already do, digging, sowing, weeding, cutting etc. sooooo... what is a more useful investment of time? the one that feeds 8 billion people with 50 cents of fruit and veg a day or the one that already has competition? :) hi from the UK.

Idea is great. Can't it be made smaller?

4:34 "B-BAKA!!"

oh dear isaac gym

Are hiring interns... I'm interested

Look, as long as its not going to the Titanic, you should be fine.

Well, the BD gave up on hydraulic atlas so you planning on competition with it by proxy now won the contest against electric atlas. im honestly disheartened by their decision due to love of hydraulics and how intricate they are

Amazing video and design. Thanks 🎉 PS: I’d recommend a more catchy name and website. It was practically impossible to find using google. Also related video (and a catchy name example): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cqpYpj8EaDY.html

Use the power of AI to make it walk efficiently, also add some feet so he can walk as a test.

The key frame says "designing plastic to rival steel" - what plastic did you design? Did you invent a new fiber-reinforced resin? Which one is it? A lot of us ME's would love a plastic that rivals steel! Is it glass-filled PEEK or maybe carbon-filled Ultem™?? Come on, we're all dying to know what resin competes favorably with steel! Spit it out!

Lightweight✅ Durability ❌