AKUROBATTO

testing a 3d printed slip ring for power transfer

the arm went through some variations to get the locking right and get the power delivered though the lock joints. Getting a repeatable lock joint is very hard especially with fdm printed parts.  

I went though various iterations of the locking mechanism to get to the current version.

The biggest challenge was to get a small stepper motor with enough torque which could fit in small space. I did not use a hobby servo as those things don't have very accurate position sensors and they cannot do a full 360 turn . Also i experimented with small geared stepper but most couldn't fit into the tight space of the gears where useless after a few high torque runs. So i combined a 15 and 20 mm stepper with a servo gearbox.