Servo Robotic Arm: Mechanical

I went into this project with the intention of using what I knew to quickly create a simple robotic arm using spare servos and components. Discissions were made to omit bearings, proper wire management and stronger and/or more heat resistant materials. These decisions

led to the final design shown here:

Final Robot Arm

It may not be obvious once fully assembled, but the issues I mentioned above led to a max operation time of ~20 minutes. the friction caused by the imperfect prints and lack of bearings caused the servos to quickly overheat from the high friction. While this heat never actually broke a servo, it did lead to the melting of the servo horn mounts with time. Ultimately this melting is what limits the arm's runtime.

On top of that, while not as critical, the way the wires were managed led to issues during assembly and operation, wires tangling was not uncommon and after a few uses one of the wired going to the gripper servos was cut and had to be reconnected.

What I would Change

If I were to remake this arm I would remake the entire model. From the very beginning of the redesign I would make sure bearings are added to lower friction, proper wire management would be considered from the very start and I would also consider a greater number of materials, including ones with better heat resistance to accommodate the servos heating up.