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Has anyone noticed much higher friction in the 6L pumps compared to the old 5.5L pumps? I ordered some 6L pumps from Pick A Brick for my compressor but the motors struggle to pump them (even with extra down-gearing), making compression slow and the batteries drain fast.

That is something I'd love to get my hands on. I still reference Sariel's Technic Builder's Guide but it's 13 years old now. Will your book be hard copy or digital?

A pneumatic elbow fitting, something like this:

Hi, the code is written in pybricks, so if you want to use it you have to install pybricks on your hub from https://pybricks.com/. Specifics of what each line means can be found in the documentation at https://docs.pybricks.com/en/latest/.

Looks good - infinite rotation on joints 4 & 6 and with all Lego parts . I've found a duty limit of around 40% to be the sweet spot most of the time. As long as the end stops are properly braced there are no problems. I don't detect in the program when they're out of sync. I save motor angles to be able to quickly test/use the robot in a reasonably accurate position without having to home it. Exactly - compensating for absolute position changes should make this more accurate, as long as the motors haven't moved by +/-180 degrees or more. This is probably worth trying :).

. The unfortunate truth. I too would go with the tap water. I guess there are a few places it could be placed - my thinking was to place it between joint 5 and joint 6 and determine the orientation error at that point. That is a great idea. Do you have any idea which camera and/or software you might use? For me, using the relative positions of the drive motors works very well to determine joint angles (and I think is more precise than direct joint encoders would be, because of the gearing down). I just save the motor positions to the hub every time I shut it down, and if they ever get out of sync with the joints I re-home the joints to the end-stops.

@Glaysche I was thinking of doing the same thing with the spike essentials hub on my robot arm (but decided not to mostly because the hub was too expensive). I think it's a good idea and not too heavy if you use the small motors (or just one motor and pass two functions through the turntable with a differential). The essentials hub would also give you orientation data for the end effector, which could be useful if you end up doing inverse kinematics. By the way, thanks for sharing the updates. That remote control setup is really nice!

Here's the code. Note that it's raw and a bit messy - I never intended to publish it. from pybricks.hubs import TechnicHub from pybricks.pupdevices import Motor from pybricks.parameters import Port, Stop, Color, Direction from pybricks.tools import wait from math import sin, pi, fabs, sqrt print("START") # Initialize the hub hub = TechnicHub() # Initialize the motors motor_x = Motor(Port.A, Direction.COUNTERCLOCKWISE, [20, 75]) motor_y = Motor(Port.B, Direction.COUNTERCLOCKWISE, [20, 75]) motor_z = Motor(Port.C, Direction.COUNTERCLOCKWISE, [20, 75]) #motor_suction = Motor(Port.D, Direction.CLOCKWISE, [12, 36]) # Initialize variables old_x = 0.0 old_y = 0.0 old_z = 0.0 # Flash light def flash(): hub.light.on(Color.GREEN) wait(100) hub.light.off() # Find zero def reset_motors(): print("Finding origin...") motor_x.run_until_stalled(-100, duty_limit=30) print("x zero set.") #flash() motor_y.run_until_stalled(-100, duty_limit=30) print("y zero set.") #flash() motor_z.run_until_stalled(-100, duty_limit=30) print("z zero set.") #flash() motor_x.reset_angle(0) motor_y.reset_angle(0) motor_z.reset_angle(0) #motor_suction.reset_angle(0) # Move end effector def move(x, y, z, speed): global old_x global old_y global old_z rel_x = x - old_x rel_y = y - old_y rel_z = z - old_z segment_length = sqrt(pow(rel_x,2) + pow(rel_y,2) + pow(rel_z,2)) time = segment_length / speed if time == 0: time = 0.01 x_speed = fabs(rel_x) / time y_speed = fabs(rel_y) / time z_speed = fabs(rel_z) / time #print("Time = " + str(time) + "; Segment length = " + str(segment_length) + "; Speed = " + str(x_speed) + ", " + str(y_speed) + ", " + str(z_speed) + "; Move to " + str(x) + ", " + str(y) + ", " + str(z)) if x_speed > 1: motor_x.run_target(x_speed, x*10, then=Stop.COAST, wait=False) if y_speed > 1: motor_y.run_target(y_speed, y*10, then=Stop.COAST, wait=False) if z_speed > 1: motor_z.run_target(z_speed, z*10, then=Stop.COAST, wait=False) wait(time * 12000) old_x = x old_y = y old_z = z # Move each axis +/- def axes_demo(speed): move(7,7,0,speed) move(0,7,0,speed) move(0,0,0,speed) move(0,7,0,speed) move(0,7,5,speed) move(0,7,0,speed) # Circle (diagonal) def circle(speed): move(6.0,5.3,4.3,speed) move(4.9,6.5,3.5,speed) move(3.7,7.0,2.5,speed) move(2.1,6.5,1.5,speed) move(1.0,5.3,0.7,speed) move(0.7,3.5,0.5,speed) move(1.0,1.7,0.7,speed) move(2.1,0.5,1.5,speed) move(3.5,0.0,2.5,speed) move(4.9,0.5,3.5,speed) move(6.0,1.8,4.3,speed) move(6.3,3.5,4.5,speed) # Circle (diagonal reverse) def circle2(speed): move(6.0,1.8,4.3,speed) move(4.9,0.5,3.5,speed) move(3.7,0.0,2.5,speed) move(2.1,0.5,1.5,speed) move(1.0,1.7,0.7,speed) move(0.7,3.5,0.5,speed) move(1.0,5.3,0.7,speed) move(2.1,6.5,1.5,speed) move(3.5,7.0,2.5,speed) move(4.9,6.5,3.5,speed) move(6.0,5.3,4.3,speed) move(6.3,3.5,4.5,speed) # Circle (diagonal reverse raised) def circle3(speed): move(6.7,1.8,4.8,speed) move(5.6,0.5,4.0,speed) move(4.2,0.0,3.0,speed) move(2.8,0.5,2.0,speed) move(1.7,1.7,1.2,speed) move(1.4,3.5,1.0,speed) move(1.7,5.3,1.2,speed) move(2.8,6.5,2.0,speed) move(4.2,7.0,3.0,speed) move(5.6,6.5,4.0,speed) move(6.7,5.3,4.8,speed) move(7.0,3.5,5.0,speed) # Circle (top plane) def circle4(speed): move(7,3.5,5,speed) move(6.96,4,5,speed) move(6.85,4.5,5,speed) move(6.66,5,5,speed) move(6.37,5.5,5,speed) move(5.95,6,5,speed) move(5.46,6.4,5,speed) move(4.92,6.7,5,speed) move(4.33,6.9,5,speed) move(3.5,7,5,speed) move(2.67,6.9,5,speed) move(2.08,6.7,5,speed) move(1.54,6.4,5,speed) move(1.05,6,5,speed) move(0.63,5.5,5,speed) move(0.34,5,5,speed) move(0.15,4.5,5,speed) move(0.04,4,5,speed) move(0,3.5,5,speed) move(0.04,3,5,speed) move(0.15,2.5,5,speed) move(0.34,2,5,speed) move(0.63,1.5,5,speed) move(1.05,1,5,speed) move(1.54,0.6,5,speed) move(2.08,0.3,5,speed) move(2.67,0.1,5,speed) move(3.5,0,5,speed) move(4.33,0.1,5,speed) move(4.92,0.3,5,speed) move(5.46,0.6,5,speed) move(5.95,1,5,speed) move(6.37,1.5,5,speed) move(6.66,2,5,speed) move(6.85,2.5,5,speed) move(6.96,3,5,speed) move(7,3.5,5,speed) # Suction movement def suction_move(x,y,z): move(6.8,1.2,5,100) #wait(500) move(6.8,1.2,z,100) wait(200) # Suction on motor_suction.run_target(500, 180, then=Stop.BRAKE, wait=False) wait(1000) move(6.8,1.2,5.3,100) #wait(500) move(x,y,5.3,150) #wait(500) move(x,y,1.5,150) #wait(500) # Suction off motor_suction.run_target(500, 0, then=Stop.BRAKE, wait=True) wait(100) # Video part 1a def part_1a(): # Bottom square move(0,7,0,60) wait(500) move(7,7,0,60) wait(500) move(7,0,0,60) wait(500) move(0,0,0,60) wait(1000) # Move z move(0,0,5,300) wait(500) #move(0,0,5,300) #wait(500) #move(7,0,0,300) #wait(500) #move(0,7,5,300) #wait(500) #move(0,7,0,300) #wait(500) move(7,0,5,300) wait(1000) # Two circles then home move(6.3,3.5,4.5,250) circle(140) circle(140) wait(500) move(0,0,0,100) # Video part 1b def part_1b(): move(0,7,0,100) wait(3000) axes_demo(70) wait(1000) # Top circle move(7,0,5,100) wait(1000) circle4(100) wait(2000) move(6.3,3.5,4.5,100) circle(130) circle(130) wait(600) move(0,0,0,140) # Video part 2 def part_2(): move(0,0,5,300) wait(500) suction_move(0,2.8,3.0) move(0,2.8,5,150) suction_move(3,2.8,2.0) move(3,2.8,5,150) suction_move(0,4.8,1.0) move(0,4.8,5,150) suction_move(3,4.8,0.0) # Push tray wait(1000) move(1.5,7,1.5,80) move(1.5,7,0,80) move(1.5,0,0,50) wait(200) # Back right top corner move(7,7,5,400) wait(500) # PROGRAM HERE reset_motors() hub.light.on(Color.WHITE * 0.8) wait(5000) part_1b() #part_1b or part_2 here print("END")

Robust looking switching - it seems to lock into positions nicely. Can't wait to see the full video.

Nice work! Congratulations on getting it so accurate.

Ah, I now see that this is apparently what you had in the first version. I had similar problems when building my XY plotter. It seems like the increased friction is happening in the same position vertically... perhaps the ball chain is catching on something...

Wow, interesting project. I hope you can get it working. If the up/down mechanism is what's inadvertently triggering the clutch, could you just decouple the up/down so it's directly powered by the motor?

Impressive! It seems like you have achieved your goal of less than 1% error .

Nice! How is the performance of the bearings? It looks like you've kept a 2L space between both the inner and outer rings?

The year is selected first then the red carriage will move to one of two positions depending if it's a leap year or not, if I understand correctly? Maybe you could use the 14-tooth sprocket with treads with tiles attached: