Home Made Robot Gripper : 8 Steps (with Pictures)

This is an instructable for making your own gripper for robot with the help of old stuff and reusing them to get the gripper..

Grippers are used to hold and lift any object for changing it's placing from one place to other.

The grippers available in market were costly so i decided on making my own gripper with very low cost and good functioning.

this instructable is for all those who have a limited budget for their robots, and also for all those who want to invent a new type of gripper...

Any gripper requires two arms, which act like human fingers to grab hold of object , lift it, and move it from one place to other..

PLEASE VOTE FOR MY INSTRUCTABLE..........!!!!

Step 1: Material Required.

Here I used my old toys and reused the items in it to construct my gripper.

You would require:

1. DC motor (any rating)

2. Two circular gears

3. One spherical gear

4. Wooden piece

5. An old mechanix game

6. Battery( i used a 12v battery )

7. Robot chassis( to fix the gripper on)

8. lots of nut bolts

9. some tools.

Step 2: Making the Base and Fixing the Dc Motor.

The base is the portion in which the main part of our gears will be kept.

Cut out two similar square shapes of side 10cm.

I didn't had good tools, that's why the base is so ugly.

To fix the dc motor, cut another piece of wood, with a hole big enough to house the shaft of your motor.

screw the spiral gear on the dc motor shaft after fixing it in the wood.

with the help of nails and hammer, fix the upper and lower base, to the wood in on the corner of the base, such that the gear part comes inside the two. It should look somewhat like the third image.

Step 3: Making the Arms

To make the arms for my gripper i used the material from my Mechanix game.

i used:

1. two 11 hole strip

2. two 7 hole strip

3. two 5 hole strip

4. 4-5 side angles

5. 3 ninety degree connector

6. one U connector

IMAGE 2:fix the 11 hole strip with the 7 hole strip at 90 degree with help of 'U' shape connector.

now do the same on the bottom side of the 'U' connector this will give u a 'L' shape as given in image 3

now fix the '90 degree connector'(image 5 & 6) just next to the place where u connected the two strips this will help in restraining the extra motion of the arm.

now connect the 5 hole strip at the sixth hole from any side( it is the middle hole) image 7& 8.

now in the front use two '90 degree connectors' as given in image 9

do the same again to get the second part of the arm. image 10.

Step 4: The Movement of Arm

the arm need to rotate in order to grab objects. we use a circular gear to move it.

at the end hole of the 7 hole strip connect the gear with help of a wire as shown in image 2.

fix the gear so that both sides of the strip get connected with the same hole.

do the same with the other arm image 3.

make two holes on the base of gripper we made in step 2, such that the two gears align exactly with the spherical gear.

now place the arm with gear in the base and place along screw through the top layer, center of gear and bottom layer so that the gear rotates easily on its axis.

(the spiral gear will rotate by dc motor which rotates the two gears and help the gripper to move.)

the gears should be placed carefully, so as to make the contacts neat as shown in image 4,5,6&8.

Step 5: More Joints for Better Movement

The 5 hole strip that was connected in the middle of the 11 hole strip is still not connected.

to do so, make 2 more holes in the wooden piece, exactly in front of the 2 holes we made for putting the gears.

move the 5 hole strip such that it comes in contact with the wooden base. when both sides are exactly in line with the holes for gears ( that's the point where u have to make holes).

now with help of nut and bolt fix the two strip on the base.

finally u get something like image 1 of this step.

ur gripper is almost ready.

move to next step..