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Originally Posted by MrForbes
And surgical tubing also has this problem, even more than the gas spring. The fun part is trying to get the geometry right so that it works the way you want, ie. naturally holds the arm retracted in the "stowed" position, then provides more help as the arm raises up. We haven't been able to do it yet, but one of these years we'll actually design this part of the robot.
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The way we've found some success using surgical tubing is to pre-stretch it a little so that even when its in its most relaxed position, it's still providing a bit of resistance. It seems a lot of the nonlinearity is in the first few inches of elongation, so this seemed to work for us. Then again, arm balancing is the kind of thing you can just get "good enough" at.
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The 330 approach of using a lot more motor power, seems to be quite successful. I'd listen to Eric.
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There's a lot to be said for just throwing a gear reduction at the problem. It naturally slows your arm down a lot more so you are less reliant on software to control it. Plus depending on your configuration, you can probably self-right your robot. I mean, adding a spring can only help an arm, but if you gear like 330 it's not mandatory.