I am exploring a business opportunity, consisting of the automation of a process. For this, I estimate that I need a Cartesian robot with a work area of 2x1 m, and one or two SCARA robots, with a range of about 1.5 m. The robots will take pieces of small size and weight, exert a little pressure on a horizontal profile, and screw on sheet metal, moving with speed.
I have seen multiple amateur solutions, most of them with parts machined on 3D printers, with more or less precision and speed. My question is using DIY solutions I can make these robots with precision, speed, and a professional finish, which will allow me to start up a mini production line with a certain durability. What I want at this time is to know the possibilities and the economic and time cost of these solutions.
If you can pass me a good reference of professionally finished Cartesian robots and SCARA, and sufficiently documented, I would appreciate it, since the information on Google is very scattered.
To obtain the design documentation for a 'professional quality' robot you have the following choices:
License the design from an existing manufacturer.
Buy one and reverse engineer it.
Steal the design (industrial espionage)
It's unlikely any of these will work out cheaper than just buying commercial units, unless you plan to manufacture them at the same scale as the original manufacturer.
The idea of stealing the plans is tempting, but I might end up needing the SCARA to open the bars of the cell .
If I'm not misunderstanding you, do you mean to say that, with Arduino and the tools an amateur has, you can't get a professional quality result? At least in the case of the robots we are talking about.
Maybe I'm deluded, and I'm no expert, but I thought that with more or less difficulty almost any project could be achieved, although it's true that the vast majority of Arduino uses are as a hobby or toy.
It's an interesting debate. Sorry if I misunderstood you, and thanks for the answer.
Design and manufacturing are two different problems.
From a manufacturing perspective anything is possible, provided that you have unlimited time and money. Take for example the development of the marine chronometer in the 1700s. These precision machines were built using hand tools.
Today, building marine chronometers using hand tools is not a viable business model. The same applies to precision robots.
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