Hand wearability test and first wrist bearing test

After some trials and redesign, hand frame has been completed and wearability and comfort is ok despite being an inner exoskeleton.

The reason of this, as explained in the details section, is the aim to enhance grip strength. In order to achieve this, I wanted to avoid to squeeze the user hand between the object and the exoskeleton frame.

Here you can see a movement test wearing the full hand.

Another important details: the two mid fingers are joined together because at this 3D printed stage the frame is quite thick to achieve proper resistance and splitting these two fingers would have been complicated while keeping a proper comfort.

The reason why I did not joint pinky and ring finger is because these two have joints not on the same line (pinky ends almost on the last ring finger joint), therefore I went for the mid ones which are quite aligned.

Being the hand frame complete, it is time to build the wrist connection, which will initially have only 2 degrees on freedom. Third one will be easily added later.

I printed the first piece of the custom bearing joint (made out of 2 rails of steel ball bearings and a centering feature) and preliminary test was ok both in terms of dimensions and movability.