Hexapod CNC bot
posted Jun 11th 2008 6:30pm by Eliot Phillipsfiled under: Uncategorized, cnc hacks
With all the 8 legged beasts lumbering about and hosting sausage fests, it’s nice to see the robots with 6 legs actually being productive. [Matt Denton]’s hexapod robot CNC router is quite an impressive piece of machinery. The B.F. Hexapod was built using Hitech’s HSR-5995TG which are much higher torque than similar sized units. Each foot is ball joint mounted to ease terrain adaptation. Only recently has [Matt] started playing with CNC. First, he did a pen plotter proof of concept. Now The bot can mill 3D surfaces in polystyrene. It’s still a little course and will probably always be a bit imprecise since it’s not bolted down. He’s also still planning to convert it from standard 1/8inch bits to 3mm router bits. We’d love to see this bot working away at an intricate bas-relief. Having no fixed work envelope really opens up the possibilities for machines like this and Hektor. Video and final product are embedded below.
[via Gizmodo]
Fantastic…I can imagine very large CNC artwork being done by a swarm of these bots. They could even drill locator holes into the surface and have expanding fasteners on their feet to temporarily bolt to a surface, and maintain register after moving to a new location. Large vertical or even curved surfaces…. The video made me feel like I’d been launched 50 years forward in time.
Posted at 6:50 pm on Jun 11th, 2008 by garrett