The 30g silicone insulated wire from Hobby King is wonderfully soft and flexible for this sort of thing (go to workbench->wire & leads and then filter for 30 gauge, there are lots of colors and lengths)
Can confirm, Silicone insulated wire is insanely flexible; also, your soldering iron won't melt the insulation. Edit: heh, looks like someone else can confirm as well. Derp.
This video series got recommended to me by RUclips because I have been designing a steampunk character with a lot of biometric parts. I am not any kind of engineer or technichian, I only get half the jargon, but seeing something like a hand being built and carefully tweaked to act so organically is so crazy and sci-fi to my little writer/illustrator brain! I love your work so much, and just know that you hold the fascination of a very confused yet highly curious mind with your careful explanations and video documentation 💛
@@zfrenchy1716 Siraya Tech, among others, offers affordable ABS-like resin and flexible/impact-resistant resins. I've used the former to print T-nuts for my FDM printer that lasted longer than the same T-nut printed on my FDM printer. Throw in some chopped glass fiber and you could have a significantly stronger resin-printed part.
Another thing you might consider is either partnering with someone who knows molding and casting or learning to do it yourself. You can get much stronger parts from casting solid pieces out of production resins like the TASK series from Smooth On. Also, good plan with moving the servo resistors!
I would recommend using “Blu” resin or anything made by the same company. It is pretty expensive ($50 for a bottle) but it is the strongest resin for Sla printing. I have tried using normal resin for mechanical type prints and the prints come out very brittle and snap very easily
Supposedly you're supposed to mix different resins to get the best material. I have a faint memory of people using Siraya Blu, but mixing it with something else to get extremely strong parts while Blu on it's own was either too brittle or something. Also there was a better alternative to Blu due to it often being out of stock, too expensive or something, but can't remember more about that.
Maybe an interesting idea for minimizing the number of wires running through the fingers; Most, if not every, servo's have the potentiometer directly connected to the power lines. If you make sure that all servo's for one finger share the same power supply, you can connect the potentiometers in the finger together, with only the control wire having to be separate. That would reduce the number of wires lower in the finger from 9 to 5, Make sure to check if the potentiometers are connected directly to power before doing this!
This is a cool project, I like the idea of moving the potentiometers out to the joints. FYI ABS fumes are absolutely toxic, please avoid breathing them. Additionally, SLA printers have their own toxic handling issues (part cleaning with alcohol is imperative).
for the positional sensor wires, use a thin gauge silicone coated wire. Not only is the sleeving higher in heat resistance, but it bends very well, and normally has good durability.
Next Step: Aluminium pieces ? With a mini Lathe and Milling machine like Proxon PF230 you could be able to make your pieces fast... Concerning servo motors, you could consider using linear motion system... Great work and realization!
In your final design when you have the servo's for all the tendon wires in the forearm you could switch to a Two servo design and have all the tendon wires in an electronic clamp and only clamp on when you want to move each digit. Im not even a robotics hobbyist but it seems like it could reduce weight and provide more space for wrist and forearm servos.
For the potentiometer wiring, also look into 3-conductor cables for things like stereo headphone connections (aka L+R+ground/shield). You might be able to find some *really* compact options off-shelf.
You're work is amazing Will, I see great potential in this project. In other news, thank you for releasing your animatronic eye mechanism. For a school project I developed an eye tracking headset and your rig was perfect for demo-ing it.
estoy desarrollando este proyecto, muchas gracias Will por compartir todo tu desarrollo y hacerlo open source, por supuesto hay muchas mejoras en las que pienso que pueden ser realizadas por mi para este proyecto, ahora mismo no cuento con impresora de resina e imprimir piezas tan pequeñas en una impresora FDM me está costando mucho trabajo, me veo obligadoa tener que escalar algunas piezas y hacer modificaciones para poder tener resultados deseados. Sin embargo te felicito, aunque ya ha pasado tiempo que no subes videos ni actualizaciones, te sigo en patreon.
I would definitely look into ribbon cable for your potentiometer wiring. Usually can get much thinner wires, and is scalable to how many wires you actually need. Although you will eventually run into the issue of how to route the wires in a moving object regardless of what you end up using.
Very good design. You should try to use 28 or 30 gauge magnet wire bundled together for the control wire. You will most likely not drop enough voltage through them since your control system is very close to the sensor.
just looking at what you are doing, you could possibly reduce control down to 3 servos. One circular looped wire for left right lateral movement, one looped wire for up down of the first joint, then the last looped wire to control the curling and straightening of the last two joints.
7:08, when ABS is melted it releases styrene in the fumes, styrene is a suspected carcinogen, so that would make sense why it would give you a headache
man keep doing what your doing m8 this shit is bloody great! This is like the first marble machine. I'm really looking forward for what it's going to be like in the future!
Great improvements..its amazing how it moved..like old horror movies where only cut hand will move around.. Btw have you tried PETG? It's easy as PLA to print but is very string and slides more easily without stickiness.
wow, ive been following the progress of your project and it is really getting a lot more refined. the cable and pulleys should give a pretty good grip strength
Nice! I personally own a resin printer (Elegoo Mars) and since the beginning of this project I was like, it would be way more precise hahaha, maybe a bit faster to print too and surely way smoother at the friction points, as a watchmaker I printed few parts for watches with great accuracy. Awesome videos!
Have you considered ribbon cables? They can lay flat against the top of the fingers, and instead of having a bunch of loose wires you could have groups of 3 split off at each joint and have a single solid ribbon at the bottom end.
Impressive stuff. I noticed you're using ball bearings for the pivots, have you thought about using polymer bushings (something like those made by Igus) in their place? I'm coming at it from a packaging view point - polymer bushings are much smaller than their equivalent ball bearings. Just a thought.
Try magnet wire, because it doesn't have the rubberized coating but is insulated with an enamel. So 32 gauge magnet wire is only about 0.008" or 0.2mm in total diameter.
I think SLA printing is the way to go. But if ABS fumes are an issue for you, resin is also going to be a problem. Elegoo and eSun make water washable resins that give off less odor, but you really should find a well ventilated space to print.
If you are planning on getting resin printer then I would recommend the elegoo mars. Very nice printer for about ~$300 and has a large community around it if you have any problems.
Hi, I'm working on getting a mechatronic hand to test how well one could be controlled with Valve's knuckles controllers and their finger tracking. Are you planning to add license (e.g. MIT) to the github repo? Regarding SLA printers, there seem to be some pretty good ones in the ~$500 range as well, and resin compability charts pretty well documented by the 3d printing community. Bit of a mess with the resin cleanup and curing, but amazing details possible.
I think it might be worth looking up making custom flexible pcb to replace the wires coming from the finger pots to make it more compact (the PCB is less than a quarter of a mm, good place to get some made would be PCBWay for instance). Bearings might also be overkill for this application, bushings or solid bearings might be better suited and more compact. Barnaby Dixon uses a mechanism consisting of a cable inside a spring with silicon sleeve to great effect in his hand puppets, might also be worth checking out for another way to deliver control from an actuator to an end effecter.
Have you thought about making the pinky and third finger (next to pinky) not as complex? I typically use my 1st and 2nd finger in combination with my thumb where dexterity is required. But I rarely use my other fingers for such movement.
While a true SLA printer may be more accurate you may want to look into getting a DLP resin printer for the price, thankfully in the last few years the price has come down a ton for both the machines and the resin. I should also mention that there are a lot of tricks and methods to go about fixing or tweaking a huge variety of different problems you encounter with resin printers so I'll be happy to help with what I know of DLP if the time comes.
What about fine dynema rope? I have some that's about 1mm thick with a brake weight of 270kg. If you can find twisted instead of woven you might be able to use a strand of that, woven might work too, just harder to seperate.
I believe you are using the potentiometer in the phalanges for servo feedback. why not leave these potentiometers mounted in your own servo case ? Will it give you enough accuracy than in the phalanges ? Simplification is the game for machine durability.
Why don't you try out bell wire? It is very thin, flexible, cheap and insulated. The Anycubic Photon Zero might be a good choice if your parts are not too big. Keep up your good work.
Really nice work and clean camera views. Would be awesome if you go to i-materialise.com and 3d print this in stainless steel. It's expensive but within reach. crowd fund the cost for one finger. I'd be happy to contribute, to see results =) Obviously to realize lightweight you'd have to punch out some material from the models...
Question: Isn't the sensor built into the servo supposed to also help the servo determine the direction of rotation? If you move that further down the linkage wouldn't the finger sometimes accidentally move the wrong way for a bit before "realizing" and making the correct motion?
Things lile this are where graphene and carcbon nanotubes will see their most potential, in creating smaller electronic components like actuators, connrctions, and sensors.
If you could achieve this using FDM parts it would be far far more accessible as SLA usually needs a lot of safety precautions and waste management handling.
I believe the idea is to make it roughly the same size as a real hand and forearm so scaling it up would make it a lot easier but it would kind of defeat the purpose
Have you considered printing in PETG filament? If you are thinking of moving to ABS, PETG offers much better ease of use while mainting good mechanical properties :) What printer are you using btw?
at 6:00 how did you manage to accurately print a pulley that fits the servo spline? Not tried with an MG90 but a smaller one was something of a fail for me. Incidently, it might be worth a search around in case there is a reachable hackspace who have a resin printer. Small chance but might be worth checking.
BTW really loving the video updates. It's great to see someone (especially someone with so much knowledge/experience of hand biology) really focusing on doing one project well in great detail and discussing the process and experimentation along the way. Awesome stuff!
Have you considered this kind of "roling joint" (3-DOF wrist joint) for the wrist? From what I could see it imitates the entirety of the motions the human wrist is capable of, including the fact that roling the hand doesn't turn it around 360°. LIMS2-AMBIDEX mechanical design ruclips.net/video/aLaqMreVj9o/видео.html LIMS 2 - AMBIDEX Arm Joint recreated and printed ruclips.net/video/RXhtcWz5GBg/видео.html
The 30g silicone insulated wire from Hobby King is wonderfully soft and flexible for this sort of thing (go to workbench->wire & leads and then filter for 30 gauge, there are lots of colors and lengths)
wrapping wire ?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's just silicone and not electrical wire.
@@MrWayash The item name does sound misleading, but it is multi-stranded copper wire with silicone insulation.
Can confirm, I used this type of wire in bionic limb development for my Masters
Can confirm, Silicone insulated wire is insanely flexible; also, your soldering iron won't melt the insulation.
Edit: heh, looks like someone else can confirm as well. Derp.
It’s so cool watching this project progress, my imagination just flares with a cyberpunk future.
RUclips didn't give me a notification but this was in my recommended feed uploaded 1 minute ago.
This video series got recommended to me by RUclips because I have been designing a steampunk character with a lot of biometric parts. I am not any kind of engineer or technichian, I only get half the jargon, but seeing something like a hand being built and carefully tweaked to act so organically is so crazy and sci-fi to my little writer/illustrator brain! I love your work so much, and just know that you hold the fascination of a very confused yet highly curious mind with your careful explanations and video documentation 💛
I think if you used a resin 3d printer, your parts will be far more accurate. Great Project!
I believe the goal of his design is to be fault tolerant enough that it can be printed by a standard 3d printer.
agreed, more accurate parts, but less mechanical strengh
@@zfrenchy1716 Siraya Tech, among others, offers affordable ABS-like resin and flexible/impact-resistant resins. I've used the former to print T-nuts for my FDM printer that lasted longer than the same T-nut printed on my FDM printer. Throw in some chopped glass fiber and you could have a significantly stronger resin-printed part.
he mentions this at 7:11
@zfrenchy depends on material. Tough 2 from formlabs is pretty great.
Another thing you might consider is either partnering with someone who knows molding and casting or learning to do it yourself. You can get much stronger parts from casting solid pieces out of production resins like the TASK series from Smooth On.
Also, good plan with moving the servo resistors!
I would recommend using “Blu” resin or anything made by the same company. It is pretty expensive ($50 for a bottle) but it is the strongest resin for Sla printing. I have tried using normal resin for mechanical type prints and the prints come out very brittle and snap very easily
Supposedly you're supposed to mix different resins to get the best material. I have a faint memory of people using Siraya Blu, but mixing it with something else to get extremely strong parts while Blu on it's own was either too brittle or something. Also there was a better alternative to Blu due to it often being out of stock, too expensive or something, but can't remember more about that.
The realization was awesome. The development of the idea really close to real one and to the reality motions.
Replacing the servo encoder with your own blew my mind - I never would have thought of doing that!
Hey Will, for the pot cables try some wire-wrap wires, they're extra thin, usually 32awg, and are thined
Maybe an interesting idea for minimizing the number of wires running through the fingers;
Most, if not every, servo's have the potentiometer directly connected to the power lines. If you make sure that all servo's for one finger share the same power supply,
you can connect the potentiometers in the finger together, with only the control wire having to be separate. That would reduce the number of wires lower in the finger from 9 to 5,
Make sure to check if the potentiometers are connected directly to power before doing this!
This is a cool project, I like the idea of moving the potentiometers out to the joints. FYI ABS fumes are absolutely toxic, please avoid breathing them. Additionally, SLA printers have their own toxic handling issues (part cleaning with alcohol is imperative).
for the positional sensor wires, use a thin gauge silicone coated wire. Not only is the sleeving higher in heat resistance, but it bends very well, and normally has good durability.
It's all about the pulleys! 🤘 ... also I just love the relocated trim pot
Next Step: Aluminium pieces ? With a mini Lathe and Milling machine like Proxon PF230 you could be able to make your pieces fast...
Concerning servo motors, you could consider using linear motion system...
Great work and realization!
You're gonna love SLA printing.
Precision components are so much easier, with far less post-processing, and they're stronger than you might think.
I wish I was made of ABS. Maybe then I wouldn't injure myself spontaneously doing the worm in sync w/ your finger and yelling I love you Will Cogley
I think I've made this comment before, but i am continually impressed by your inventiveness.
In your final design when you have the servo's for all the tendon wires in the forearm you could switch to a Two servo design and have all the tendon wires in an electronic clamp and only clamp on when you want to move each digit.
Im not even a robotics hobbyist but it seems like it could reduce weight and provide more space for wrist and forearm servos.
For the potentiometer wiring, also look into 3-conductor cables for things like stereo headphone connections (aka L+R+ground/shield). You might be able to find some *really* compact options off-shelf.
You're work is amazing Will, I see great potential in this project.
In other news, thank you for releasing your animatronic eye mechanism. For a school project I developed an eye tracking headset and your rig was perfect for demo-ing it.
estoy desarrollando este proyecto, muchas gracias Will por compartir todo tu desarrollo y hacerlo open source, por supuesto hay muchas mejoras en las que pienso que pueden ser realizadas por mi para este proyecto, ahora mismo no cuento con impresora de resina e imprimir piezas tan pequeñas en una impresora FDM me está costando mucho trabajo, me veo obligadoa tener que escalar algunas piezas y hacer modificaciones para poder tener resultados deseados. Sin embargo te felicito, aunque ya ha pasado tiempo que no subes videos ni actualizaciones, te sigo en patreon.
I would definitely look into ribbon cable for your potentiometer wiring. Usually can get much thinner wires, and is scalable to how many wires you actually need. Although you will eventually run into the issue of how to route the wires in a moving object regardless of what you end up using.
Very good design. You should try to use 28 or 30 gauge magnet wire bundled together for the control wire. You will most likely not drop enough voltage through them since your control system is very close to the sensor.
just looking at what you are doing, you could possibly reduce control down to 3 servos. One circular looped wire for left right lateral movement, one looped wire for up down of the first joint, then the last looped wire to control the curling and straightening of the last two joints.
7:08, when ABS is melted it releases styrene in the fumes, styrene is a suspected carcinogen, so that would make sense why it would give you a headache
Great work, Will! The movement looks very tight, and I love the efficient design. Inspirational stuff!
man keep doing what your doing m8 this shit is bloody great! This is like the first marble machine. I'm really looking forward for what it's going to be like in the future!
Great improvements..its amazing how it moved..like old horror movies where only cut hand will move around..
Btw have you tried PETG? It's easy as PLA to print but is very string and slides more easily without stickiness.
wow, ive been following the progress of your project and it is really getting a lot more refined. the cable and pulleys should give a pretty good grip strength
Next big step for your bionic hand should be compliant joints. that would be a quantum jump from robotic, rigid hand to a much more human-like hand.
Keep doing what you are doing. You'll eventually get there.
Thank you for telling me what the ptfe tubes are called! I have been searching for that for a while now
I knew you was working on a full scale cyborg.
I want one!
Nice! I personally own a resin printer (Elegoo Mars) and since the beginning of this project I was like, it would be way more precise hahaha, maybe a bit faster to print too and surely way smoother at the friction points, as a watchmaker I printed few parts for watches with great accuracy. Awesome videos!
Have you considered ribbon cables? They can lay flat against the top of the fingers, and instead of having a bunch of loose wires you could have groups of 3 split off at each joint and have a single solid ribbon at the bottom end.
I've got a Saturn on the way, going to use it to make some of your projects when it gets here!
what about using headphone wires, they are really thin and flexible
Impressive stuff. I noticed you're using ball bearings for the pivots, have you thought about using polymer bushings (something like those made by Igus) in their place? I'm coming at it from a packaging view point - polymer bushings are much smaller than their equivalent ball bearings. Just a thought.
Can somebody please sponsor him with a resin printer? I've git all my limbs, but this is really cool.
I didn't understand any of this but I really enjoyed it
Try magnet wire, because it doesn't have the rubberized coating but is insulated with an enamel. So 32 gauge magnet wire is only about 0.008" or 0.2mm in total diameter.
This is brilliant. Keep working on it Will.
I think SLA printing is the way to go. But if ABS fumes are an issue for you, resin is also going to be a problem. Elegoo and eSun make water washable resins that give off less odor, but you really should find a well ventilated space to print.
An sla printer is definitely the way to go. Your fdm printed parts, however, do look very good. I could never achieve that accuracy lol
Hi, amazing job Will! can you tell what is the name of the tool that you used here: 4:27?
I sang your praises to a LA based special effects company also to a medical prosthesis company, hope they have been in contact with you.
sombody gift thise men a sla 3dprinter! Great work! keep it up!
You should check out "Wire wrapping" wire. It is thin AWG 30 Wire, which is very bendable.
nice video .. will see you next year
If you are planning on getting resin printer then I would recommend the elegoo mars. Very nice printer for about ~$300 and has a large community around it if you have any problems.
Great job, keep it up! Are you designing this as an option for prosthetics or as industrial manipulation?
With abs you can glue it such that is is welded together for strength
Would it be possible to use earphone wires as they are very thin but strong enough for some bends?
Hi, I'm working on getting a mechatronic hand to test how well one could be controlled with Valve's knuckles controllers and their finger tracking. Are you planning to add license (e.g. MIT) to the github repo?
Regarding SLA printers, there seem to be some pretty good ones in the ~$500 range as well, and resin compability charts pretty well documented by the 3d printing community. Bit of a mess with the resin cleanup and curing, but amazing details possible.
You can go thinner on the line if you use kevlar line.
Also, I use petg for most of my prints, it's much better than abs and pla
5:35 what about earphone wires?
Your small parts look really clean and tidy. What size hotels are you using for them?
Hey, you should take few hours to tweak your 3d printer , the quality can be greatly improved
This is all very big brain.
I think a more vascular inspired cable control setup would do you well
I think it might be worth looking up making custom flexible pcb to replace the wires coming from the finger pots to make it more compact (the PCB is less than a quarter of a mm, good place to get some made would be PCBWay for instance).
Bearings might also be overkill for this application, bushings or solid bearings might be better suited and more compact.
Barnaby Dixon uses a mechanism consisting of a cable inside a spring with silicon sleeve to great effect in his hand puppets, might also be worth checking out for another way to deliver control from an actuator to an end effecter.
Have you thought about making the pinky and third finger (next to pinky) not as complex?
I typically use my 1st and 2nd finger in combination with my thumb where dexterity is required. But I rarely use my other fingers for such movement.
While a true SLA printer may be more accurate you may want to look into getting a DLP resin printer for the price, thankfully in the last few years the price has come down a ton for both the machines and the resin.
I should also mention that there are a lot of tricks and methods to go about fixing or tweaking a huge variety of different problems you encounter with resin printers so I'll be happy to help with what I know of DLP if the time comes.
Hey man love your videos about this project, i was wondering if i can use some of your ideas for a personal project of mine
Like your work very detailed! Good work@
Woooohoooo a full finger
Real deal terminator finger letsgo!
Dude you realise that if this catches on you're probably going to make a sizeable impact on humanity.
Watch out the finger is trying to escape!
Amazing project how about useing linear actuators for hand movement it sounds like it would go good with the pulley aspects of the design.
I believe he isn't using linear actuators because they are generally pretty slow and more expensive than the cheap servos hes using.
What about fine dynema rope? I have some that's about 1mm thick with a brake weight of 270kg. If you can find twisted instead of woven you might be able to use a strand of that, woven might work too, just harder to seperate.
Good background music.
0:40 superglued cut on finger :P
Perhaps you should use magnet wire instead of the thick wire? Its not like theres any power involved here.
I believe you are using the potentiometer in the phalanges for servo feedback. why not leave these potentiometers mounted in your own servo case ? Will it give you enough accuracy than in the phalanges ? Simplification is the game for machine durability.
That is amazing!
Can you link where you got the rotary encoders
Have you tried fioptic cable? It is as then as you can get with the fastest response time as well.
this shit is good, you just must compact more the carpal bones
Sir you make cad design on which software......??
I love your work ❤️❤️
Why don't you try out bell wire? It is very thin, flexible, cheap and insulated.
The Anycubic Photon Zero might be a good choice if your parts are not too big.
Keep up your good work.
if you use genetic algorithms to train how to move the joints. With 200 generations you could have some nice results.
Need a somewhat similar system for ankles.
Really nice work and clean camera views. Would be awesome if you go to i-materialise.com and 3d print this in stainless steel. It's expensive but within reach. crowd fund the cost for one finger. I'd be happy to contribute, to see results =) Obviously to realize lightweight you'd have to punch out some material from the models...
Question: Isn't the sensor built into the servo supposed to also help the servo determine the direction of rotation? If you move that further down the linkage wouldn't the finger sometimes accidentally move the wrong way for a bit before "realizing" and making the correct motion?
Things lile this are where graphene and carcbon nanotubes will see their most potential, in creating smaller electronic components like actuators, connrctions, and sensors.
If you could achieve this using FDM parts it would be far far more accessible as SLA usually needs a lot of safety precautions and waste management handling.
How about flat flex cable for the pots?
Would scaling it up make it easier (thinking 1.5 - 5x ?). Big enough you can use standard screws/bolts, and have more working room?
I believe the idea is to make it roughly the same size as a real hand and forearm so scaling it up would make it a lot easier but it would kind of defeat the purpose
@@dumbcrumb879 Makes Sense. I need to get the cad/do the math on what the smallest size, but with "standard parts" would be.
Have you considered using ribbon cables?
Could you use the cable itself as a drain or ground to have fewer cables running to each finger?
Have you considered printing in PETG filament? If you are thinking of moving to ABS, PETG offers much better ease of use while mainting good mechanical properties :)
What printer are you using btw?
Awesome!
Incredible... But the important question is -
If you pull on it, does your computer fart?
at 6:00 how did you manage to accurately print a pulley that fits the servo spline? Not tried with an MG90 but a smaller one was something of a fail for me. Incidently, it might be worth a search around in case there is a reachable hackspace who have a resin printer. Small chance but might be worth checking.
BTW really loving the video updates. It's great to see someone (especially someone with so much knowledge/experience of hand biology) really focusing on doing one project well in great detail and discussing the process and experimentation along the way. Awesome stuff!
Okay, since you are already 3D printing your parts. Why not get a duel head extruders, and print conductive lines, to replace your wires?
would not work
Whereabouts are you located? I dare say it is not Australia but if it is let me know as I have a resin printer
Have you considered this kind of "roling joint" (3-DOF wrist joint) for the wrist?
From what I could see it imitates the entirety of the motions the human wrist is capable of, including the fact that roling the hand doesn't turn it around 360°.
LIMS2-AMBIDEX mechanical design ruclips.net/video/aLaqMreVj9o/видео.html
LIMS 2 - AMBIDEX Arm Joint recreated and printed ruclips.net/video/RXhtcWz5GBg/видео.html
Hello. What 3D printer setup are you using? You should be able to get a lot better print quality results than what I'm seeing in your videos.