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Unread 29-04-2014, 21:52
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Re: Butterfly/ octocanum drives

I've been looking at octocanum drive trains as well and come up with several designs so far. I found this thread of 2583's design very useful, and there's information about calculating whether or not you get enough force out of your piston to lift the robot. Also, it's definitely possible to make a working design without CNC or anything heavy duty, but you'll probably want to use belts or chains if that's the case, so you can tension out any discrepancies in hole spacing. We've actually already started on a very crude prototype with chains, but we plan on upgrading to gears in the final design.
As for how long it takes to design, I'd say not very long at all, so long as you have a relatively clear picture of how the finished product will look like. And given the many existing designs you can access, that shouldn't be too hard.