Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
Why We're Giving Away Free Robots (medium.com)
23 points by jennyjenjen 3954 days ago
2 comments

Would really like to see some actual technical information on the arm. Payload, speed, accuracy, etc.
Absolutely! Payload is 1kg at extension, speed is 2 seconds between any two points, accuracy is sub-millimeter. It's got the capabilities of an industrial arm for the price of a laptop.
Power requirements? What's in it... steppers, servos?

"Guide the arm through a motion, which it replays flawlessly" -- ok, I assume it has servo motors with encoders.

The motors are in the base with timing belts extending to the joints? Backlash? Rigidity?

What's it made of? I assume it is not carbon fiber. :-)

Hi! Co-founder here...

KATIA plugs into a normal wall jack (120/240v single-phase), so you don't need to be wired for 360v three-phase power like you would with other industrial robots.

We also don't use any steppers or hobby servos like you would find on a toy arm. When we say the performance of an industrial arm, we mean it. We've built highly integrated, custom permanent magnet synchronous motors with 14-bit absolute rotary position sensors built into each joint.

Furthermore, the arm has been designed from the ground up for zero-backlash operation, and the rigidity is insane -- we're gettting less than one hundreth of a millimeter of transient deflection during our worst-case stress testing.

And it is made out of carbon fiber, because that's just how we roll.

Well, I am very impressed.

14 bit = 2^14 = 16384. Optical or some kind of hall-effect? I am going to guess hall-effect.

When I read "permanent magnet synchronous motor" I think stepper-ish motor. Is that what the joints are? No gearbox, custom stepper-ish motor, with the 14-bit encoder giving feedback not just on the position, but also the load?

What voltage do these custom motors run on? I will guess .... 48V.

It is a very sleek-looking arm.

  the 14-bit encoder giving feedback not just on the 
  position, but also the load?
Rotary encoder probably wouldn't give you that. Usually you just measure how much current the motor's drawing.
I want to see the robot :'(
We are about ready to make some demo videos! Check out our page main site http://carbon.ai and there's a video of one of our first arms - not a rendering.