4. Manufacturing & Assembly (Team 30)

The manufacturing and assembly phase went through a number of iterations, but the main build revolved around use of M5 bearings, bolts, and nuts as the joints for the PLA 3D-printed links of Mechanism A and B. A picture of the progress for the top half of the mechanism is shown below.

Issues Faced and How They were Overcome

• Bearings Slide Out
  • Tighter Tolerance Links were print out on a more accurate printer
  • also super glue was used in some cases
• Nuts would come unthreaded from the bolts and fall onto the floor
  • No solution was implemented, but would have gone with a press fit shaft or a shaft with grooves cut in it for snap rings
• Some bolts were not long enough for a nut on the other side of the link
  • No solution was implemented, but could have done something similar to above solution
• Difficult rotating links
  • Nuts were too tight in some instances so they were loosened in order to make it easier for the mechanism to move. This came with the new problem of the nuts unthreading themselves after a few cycles of the mechanism motion
• Interference between links and associated hardware
  • Re-designed some of the links for greater range of motion before interference. Also used smaller head nuts and bolts.