A few more weeks have passed, with considerable results. Lots of steps have been taken to finish the first leg (pun intended).
An overview of parts that have been manufactured, that are now more or less finished and can already be assembled.
Manufacturing
Thanks to the company Meerstaal for allowing me to use their lathe, which enabled me to shave unnecessary weight and material off some bigger parts. In addition, small specific items that required skill and finesse have been made by Ton from Metaal Draaierij Amstelveen for a small fee.
Additional, new upgrades were built in to my SpiderBot 3D Printer a new print bed, made from PEI (transparent gold color) and a heater to heat up the print environment. Both significantly improve the ease of printing with ABS, less (actually, no so far) curling or warping.
Again this time around the drill press proved its worth, 3D printing holes slightly smaller and then drilling them up to the correct size with the drill press works great. The original hole can be used as a proper guide very conveniently.
Assembly
For assembling parts with bearings different sized reamers were purchased, these easily go through the ABS and make for a very nice fitting, both for normal bearings as for ones with a flange. For holes that were not completely through and through, it is required to print them slightly deeper, as the utmost edge of a reamer is not sharp (unlike a mill). Being able to completely assemble th bottom part of the leg was great to do. Finally all the pieces were coming together.
- Leg socket (grey), connects to a servo and has a hole for mounting on the testing plate.
- Femur (grey), goes from the socket to the blue leg, holds two servo’s.
- Femur cap (blue), cap that goes over the servo that goes in to the leg socket.
- Tibia (blue, in three pieces), top, middle and bottom.
- Wheel and steer connection (grey), holds the wheel, worm gear and drive motor.
