Gearboxes for Recycled Printer Motors (1)

Typical brushed DC Motors salvaged from old printers

part 1

I love to recycle old electronics and printers for parts. I find taking old printers apart is a fascinating way to learn the mechanics of robots. I now have a nice collection of small 9v, 12v, and 18v brushed DC Motors. This is the basic mechanical part of robots! However, using these motors has proven to be difficult as they often have a high rotation speed and low torque. For robot projects, you typically need the opposite, slower rotation, and high torque.  The only way to achieve this is to use a gearbox with the motors. Gearboxes use the mechanical properties of gear-reduction to reduce the rotational rate and increase the torque.

Now it is the time in my robot development to build an accessible gearbox that will work with my projects and recycled motors.

I have worked with gear reduction on a few projects.  notably the tank track and wild weasel drive. Discussions about Planetary gears.  More recently with Tilt!, using the motors with a belt.

Here is a nice Instructable that i am using for inspiration, "3d Printed Gearbox for Small Dc Motors". It does not mention much on the actual design/engineering of the gearbox.  But, it is a nice video and a good place to start.  There are plenty of other YouTube videos that also show the capability of 3D printing gear boxes. Remember, it is far too easy to spend (waiste?) time watching others make videos, then just doing it yourself.  ;)

Starting from the Beginning

What do I need?  (Functional Requirements):

• must work with recycled printer motors 
• brushed 9-12V motors 
• bare metal spindle
• 16:1 or better reduction and torque
• minimal backlash (movement in the output shaft)
• keep the dimensions to less than 1.5 to 2 size of the motor

softer, but important requirements:

• something easy to print, use, and maintain
• reliable, not prone to jamming
• No stripping of the motor gear interface

The concept:

the motor spins a series of gears, each time a small gear with ess teeth drives a larger gear with more teeth. each stage reduces the rotational rate of the gear that is being driven. There needs to be 4-5 of theses connections. finally it is connected to an output shaft. This is all contained on just 2-3 axels, contained in a box, and bathed in grease.

Let's start with a basic gear:

I am using OpenSCAD for my designs.  For gears I highly recommend the Getriebe.scad library from Dr Jörg Janssen, he rocks!  It is written in german, but hey? what's wrong with that? ;)

The primary gear will have a large and small gear physically connected. I am starting with 14 and 28 teeth (a ratio of 2) with a modulus of 1.0 (relation between teeth and diameter). I will also use a angle on the teeth on the gear, to help reduce the gears from raising up on their axles when spun at high speed.

Gear v1

Stacking the next gear:

so the big design question, is what is the separation of the gears? this should be the diameter of the large gear minus half the diameter of the small gear plus some tolerance. Now a good engineer will be able to calculate the tolerance needed based on the 'pressure faces' of the gear teeth.  however, I am not that engineer today and my 3D printing lacks some precision, therefore I am going to start with 0.5mm. ;) 

Stacking the next gear in place

Full gear stack:

Next, add the 3rd primary gear to the top of the first axel. 

For the motor gear (Red), I am using the same gear configuration as the small gear, but making it 1.5 taller than the standard gear height.  

For the output shaft gear (Green), I am using the same gear configuration of the large gear, but will add a shaft on top of it. For this first build a version, i will just print the shaft as part of the gear. However, this is not good design. The shaft should not be printed, ideally it will be a different material, preferably metal. In fact, this is the weakest part of this design so far. Load bearings should be added to this shaft to absorb the load of the shaft and translate it to the box (or any other non-moving part of the assembly). For now, I will print - it is fast and this is more of a "pathfinder" exercise.

Full gear stack

The Box

The gears will be placed inside a box. It will be important to keep the gear from getting foreign matter jammed in the gears. Also, the gears will need some lubricant grease, which will be messy. Most important, the box will provide the structural strength needed to hold the gear axels in place. On one side the motor will be attached. On the other side will be the output shaft and associated load (a bearing would be ideal, next version).  In addition, I will add some mounting holes, so that I can bolt the gearbox to my robot creations.

My first design thoughts are to have the motor and the gears attached to a plate that can be screwed on to the box. The rest of the box will be just the compartment, output shaft hole, and mounting support. This part of the box can be printed 'upside down' (see diagram).

"top view" (no top plate) to make sure all the gears fit

The CAD view, can be used to visually determine if there will be issues with the screw placements.  In this next view you can see the motor (in blue) will over lap the screw positions for the motor plate, as a result, I think i will lengthen this side of the box to compensate. (I also have an issue with the wall placement on the right side)

Use the CAD views to verify the design

Full Design

drafting out the box and all of the screw holes, will complete the initial design.  Now it is time to review the CAD drawing, look for flaws (like forgetting the primary axel holder in the output_shaft_plate). After some adjustments it looks like this:

First full design

Time to start 3D printing and testing

The first results - work, but leave a little to be desired. I assembled the motor, gear, and the three primary gears together. I used nails as a quick axel. Hooking up about 8V of power, it gave it a quick spin. It does work! This test was outside of normal operating conditions as it will be enclosed in a box and axles will be supported on both ends.  The operations were a little rough (no grease!). Therefore I did not post of video of it.  Here are some pictures.

Gearbox version1, first print

Gearbox version1, top view

Next Steps

For the next steps on this project, I will be making adjustments and some improvements. Primarily I will reduce the number of teeth, and increase the modulus. This should result in a similar sized output, but with less teeth. I believe the lower number of teeth will print easier on my 3D printer. I may also add a few mm to the size gears as well. Check back to see on the next post.

Portable Power

 

Portable Power - in a rechargeable format

I am not so sure why it took me so long to come to a portable power solution. I now have two power packs to provide me with 12V and 8V. I have built these power packs to use 18650 cells. These cells can be easily recharged with an XTAR (cheap) charger. I 3D print the packs and used salvaged battery connectors. With a bit of soldering and hot glue, I now have two more options for power. (finally!)

When I started building robots, I used rechargeable power banks. These worked very well, but were limited to just 5V.  I had a second bigger power bank that provided 5V and 12V, but it is quiet heavy. I wanted to have more options, but I did not want to invest in expensive hobby LiPos and chargers - although they look extremely tempting.

A local Maker recommended the XTAR charger and over the counter 18650 (used by all the Vapors!).  I just need to have some packs for them. Finally, over this Christmas break I have invested the time and made my packs.  They could be A LOT nicer - My craftsmanship has waned a bit more than I realized! ;)

Robot Wolves - Totally Not Evil!!

Yeah, this is 'Totally' not evil.

A Japanese town has deployed robot wolves in an effort to scare away bears that have become an increasingly dangerous nuisance in the countryside. Credit - The Guadian - Japanese town deploys Monster Wolf robots to deter bears ► https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...

Milli (#9) - New Mount for Helix - and Crawling Video!

 Milli - a Bio/Math inspired crawling single actuator robot millipede - now with teeth!

Milli - Millipede robot - now with teeth

From the last post, you may have noticed that I had tried to print some "nodes" as a possible improvement to Milli the millipede. Well, that thought was not as successful as I had hoped. There turned out to be no flexibility and too much tension on the helix. With this in mind, I reopened the milli design and set to work on some design updates:

• Offset the motor
• add a gear reduction to the motor
• add a bearing to main helix mount - to remove force on the motor itself
• try out a new power source
• Add teeth - because we need to add more Nightmare Fuel!!

CAD Design - new Motor Mount and Gear

The new design is a new motor mount, with drive gear, a bearing mounted main gear, and new 12V "shore" power.

3D printing gears remains a dark art to me, but here you can see that they are functional. In this print, I have used a larger Modul of 1.5, this makes larger teeth. I believe for my quick 3D prints this is a more accommodating solution (more tolerance for rough prints!).

I applied a liberal amount of hot glue to attach the pre-existing helix mount to the newly printed main gear. That may qualify this for a frankenstein prototype, no doubt.

Sloppy gears? certainly room for improvement - on the next iteration.  The thicker base layer print creates an uneven gear surface.

Another issue was the 'pede wheels' that I kept from the previous build. They function as wheels, however in the video you can see that the left wheel consistently unwinds and falls off, Doh!

Ready to Test!  Let's get crawling!

Milli - Robot Millipede on a colorful background

For this round of testing, I am using "shore power". The robot is tethered to a 12V DC source. I reused a momentary switch - also from a printer - in order to easily turn on and off the robot.

Testing goes as expected.  The motor gear hold, which is surprising.  However the front left pede-wheel falls off frequently.  The motion of the helix, continues to be smooth.  I believe the addition of the bearing smooth this rotation off, taking load off the motor.  

Video on YouTube:

Next Steps:

With this success, time to think of what would be in the next iteration.

• Onboard 12V power supply
• micro-controller with PWM output
• Motor Driver board
• remote or autonomous operation (Min1 project may come first)

Current Thinking in the Robot Labs

These are things currently being thought about at the TENRA Robot Labs...

Late nights and early mornings in the lab!

3D Printing

Ah... the beauty of 3D printing for robots!   It is the magic of having an idea in your head, which leads to, a sketch on paper, a drawing in CAD, and then a solid print - or many prints:

1st - A quick sketch on paper

2nd - A quick draft in OpenSCAD

3rd - a quick print - a solid Object!

Finally - Repeat as needed

I really love this aspect of Rapid Prototyping. I find it one of the more enjoyable steps in robot building. At each step in the process, you can find opportunities or issues with your design. It is fantastically easy to go back a step or two and add improvement to the design.

A good example is in this very simple build of "Node", pictured above.  "The Node" is an experiment in the Milli Project. I wanted to explore the ability to move in two directions on the helix in order to improve the mobility of the millipede robot. 

At each step in the process, I found that new aspects of the build became evident.  Even in the first print, i realized that I need more of the 'feet' to touch the printer bed. A quick change to parameters in the CAD, and it solved the problem. Finally, a quick print of three copies of the nodes. I assembled them and was able to perform my tests. The result was that the solution would not work as is due to certain bindings. I was having a difficult time imagining this complex relation in my head.  The rapid development of the concept provides a fast path to success or failure, both are acceptable!

Min1 - what should it do at night? 

Min1 is the Minimal Viable Robot for the Totally Not Evil Robot Army.  But, I am just thinking, what can this robot do at night.  It is just sitting around, with nothing to do.  Idle cycles are the devil's playground, right? So perhaps it needs a few teeth and a sensor to seek things (like ankles) out and make stabby motions.  ;)

Min1 - outfitted with ultrasonic sensors and stabby teeth

Min1 ready to Roam - seek and stab

Min1 Robot - as a Franken-prototype ready to go

Tilt!

Tilt, the balancing - 2 wheel Robot, is sitting prominently in the TENRA Robot Labs. It is patiently waiting a more powerful power source.  Twelve Volts DC is not going to cut it, it needs more power to keep the recycled printer motors from stalling.  I have just recycled a 19V power adapter that I will use as 'shore power' for the next round of testing. 

I am really liking Tilts new 'eyes'!