Centi (#5) - New Leg Design is Printed

Centipede!!

Here is the latest print and video of the Centipede Project.

moving from OpenSCAD to print went fairly smoothly.  As you can see, I have enclosed the main rotating mechanism that moves the chopstick legs.  In this design in OpenSCAD, I have rotated everything along the Z axis, to make it easier to keep centered. The covering socket cap and ball all align, as well as the cam. You can also see holes along the structure, so that small screws can be used to assemble the leg segment. I am reusing screws from recycled printers that are used to bind plastic parts together.

OpenSCAD design

At the 'base' of the leg, I have created a hexagon. This seems to me to be 'self-bio-inspired'. I have not used hexagons in previous designs, so it is novel to me. More importantly, it fits the nature of the leg, as there is no specific 'down' or 'up.  One the walls of the cam base, I have added two small holes for M3 bolts. This allows me to connect two or more legs in sequence... thus forming the multiple legs of the Centipede.

New Print

At this time there are only two leg segments connected.  The M3 bolts are not visible, as they are inside the cam housing.  Note: I had a near-fail as I forgot to leave clearance between the cam housing wall and the bearing mount.  There are many issues to design out when doing project like this. This is why physically making the prototypes is very important to realize assembly issues.

New Gears to connect to Drive

At the base of the Cam Housing are two gears attached to the cam itself. The cam shaft runs through a bearing and then is connected to the gears.  The gears are "kegelrad" from the OpenSCAD library "Getriebe Bilbiothek für OpenSCAD".  The kegelrad could give me an ability to mount the drive gears at an angle different from the cam housing.  We shall see!  ;)