Because the saying goes — when life provides you lemons, you make lemonade. When life provides you a two-ton surplus industrial robotic arm, when you’re [Brian Brocken], you apparently make a large 3D printer.
The arm in query is an ABB IRB6400, a critical machine that may sling 100 to 200 kilograms relying on configuration. In comparison with that, the beefiest 3D printhead is successfully weightless, and the Creality Sprite unit he’s utilizing isn’t all that beefy. Getting the brand new {hardware} hooked up makes use of (paradoxically) a 3D printed mount, which is a simple sufficient hack. The laborious work, as you may think, is in software program.
Because it seems, there’s no profile in Klipper for this unhealthy boy. It’s 26-year-old controller doesn’t even communicate G-code, requiring [Brian] to feed the arm controller the “ABB RAPID” dialect it expects line-by-line, whereas concurrently feeding G-code to the RAMPS board controlling the extruder. Should you occur to have the identical arm, he’s promoting the software program that does this. Getting that synchronized reliably was the largest problem [Brian] confronted. Sadly which means issues are slowed down in comparison with what the arm would in any other case be capable of do, with a number of stop-and-start on advanced fashions, which compromises print high quality. Test the construct web page above for extra footage, or the video embedded beneath.
[Brian] hopes to repair that by making higher use of the ABB arm’s controller, because it does have sufficient reminiscence for a small buffer, if not a full print. Nonetheless, even when it’s tough proper now, it does print, which isn’t one thing the engineers at ABB in all probability ever deliberate for again earlier than Y2K. [Brian]’s final use of the arm, carving a DeLorean out of styrofoam, may be nearer to the unique design temporary.
Normally we see folks utilizing 3D printers to construct robotic arms, so it is a good inversion, although not the primary.
