[Holzwurm56]

Hello,
has someone tested to use a roboter arm as carrier for a high speed spindle and mill soft materials like wood? Or to use a roboter arm as 3D printer? Does some knows a software to control a roboter for these jobs?

Thanks

Hans

[awerby]

Robot arms been used to carve wood and stone. It takes a heavy-duty arm to do that, since they don't have much rigidity in their basic structure. Using one as a 3D printer should be easier, since rigidity isn't as critical to 3D printing. Here's a link to some people who seem to have worked out an open-source program to control ABB robot arms: Robo.Op — MADLAB.CC . But each brand of robot arms uses its own proprietary control system, so figuring out how to repurpose one takes some work. People have been building a lot of light-duty arms controlled with Arduino chips and posting about them, but these aren't really going to be much use for carving anything harder than low-density foams, although multi-axis 3D printing might be a feasible application for them.