Robotics

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If are working with Robots and Rhino, this is your group, welcome!

Location: McNeel Miami
Members: 39
Latest Activity: Jun 9, 2018

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Comment by RobotsinArchitecture on May 7, 2013 at 5:50pm: Hi Victor, about your GH doubts and what you could do with Grasshopper, milling or robot simulation, feel free to check out a couple of videos of some of our workshops e.g.http://vimeo.com/50626322 and more on the homepage www.robotsinarchitecture.org.

No doubt, but Grasshopper and some add-ons such as KUKA|prc do a good job and have been proven in real projects, check out this news: http://www.robotsinarchitecture.org/931/recent-robot-news

If you would like to investigate on robots in the creative industry and how they are "hacked", we can also recommend the following proceedings: http://www.amazon.com/Rob-Arch-2012-Fabrication-Architecture/dp/370...

Comment by Victor Dragoi on May 7, 2013 at 3:01pm: I don't understand how Godzilla works, how you make a toolpath for milling and how you give all parameters for tool,and all what a CAM software generate. Once you have the toolpath a post processor must translate in the robot language all points which define toolpath, speed, feed,...At first sight to me Godzilla seems to be too simple, if Gregory could put here a robot milling simulation where we see the robot the spindle, the tool, and workpiece maybe would be easier to understand. I don't know how you can use Grasshoper for CAM toolpath, it has such an integrated module? It is similar with classic CAM sotwares?

Comment by Nicholas Cecchi on May 7, 2013 at 10:40am: Victor, Gregory, Johannes,

You have all been very helpful and I have a much better idea of how I will pull this off once we get the funding to purchase a newer machine.

In the meantime we have two older 5-axis motoman robots which are certainly from the 80's. They are not complete - I don't think they have any control boxes, controllers, or software, just the raw electronics coming out of the bottom of the arm. I am about to embark on a project to try and revitalize one of them and turn it into a 3-axis cutting machine.

Gregory, it sounds like your Raspberry Pi controller may be useful to me in this case. My other plan is to use firefly and some type of Arduino controller, but an integrated solution sounds amazing. Do you have any tips or diagrams that may help me in this endeavor?

Thanks for all your assistance.

Comment by Gregory Epps on May 7, 2013 at 4:51am: Hi Gus, we have just released Godzilla, a robotics simulator for Grasshopper. It's very simple to use, but quite powerful (clash detection etc). Tool paths are created witha sequences of planes, so you might be able to export data from CAM software; give a go!

http://www.food4rhino.com/project/godzilla

Comment by Victor Dragoi on April 4, 2013 at 3:52pm: Hello Nicholas,

If you are a Rhino user I would recommend you Rhinocam 2012 which is a Visualmill version for Rhino working inside as a plug-in. Rhinocam define some cutting regions as surfaces edged by curves and often you need to join or unjoin some curves.Inside Rhino this feature can be achieved easier. Another positive thing I found in Rhinocam is that you have the posibility to generate an offset stock for your object not only box or cilindrical ones. Rhinocam generate output file APT-CL which is a plus if you intend to use then a robot off-line simulation and postprocessing software to generate your toolpath in the robot language. I would name here Eureka Robovis and IRBCAM which request APT-CL format for toolpath output generated by CAM soft.Mastercam and Delcam don't offer as standard APT-CL output because they have their own robot interfaces integrated for Mastercam and Powermill, I mean Robotmaster and Robot Interface for Powermill.

There are a few other software for robot simulation, off-line programming and postprocessing as Robotworks, works with Solidworks integrated, Workspace 5. In my research only these software could be considered for Robot milling application.

Best Regards,

Victor

Comment by RobotsinArchitecture on February 6, 2013 at 9:47am: Hello Nicholas,

That would definitely work with KUKA|prc, we do have interfaces for importing toolpath data from e.g. MaserCAM and SprutCAM, though they are by default not included in the regular KUKA|prc version.

They work quite fine for e.g. roughening and finishing, especially with objects such as meshes, which can be problematic within Grasshopper. For toolpaths such as for flank milling, we prefer to do it directly in Grasshopper.

Our eMail is robots@robotsinarchitecture.org if you have any questions or want to try it out.

Best Regards, Johannes @ Robots in Architecture

Comment by Freddy Chang on February 6, 2013 at 4:33am: New video: http://vimeo.com/59042484

enjoy

Comment by Freddy Chang on February 6, 2013 at 12:20am: Strange..I joined this group again..I thought I was already in this group.

Comment by Gregory Epps on February 5, 2013 at 10:18pm: Hi Nichloas, you don't need conventional 3 or 5-axis CAM software to generate tool paths - this can be done using Grasshopper. But you will need robot simulation software to follow the toolpath; to simulate reachable areas and clashes, and to generate code. I have been talking to Freddy Chang (posted below) about helping him integrate his Kuka with GH, we may be able to help you as well: We are using 2 linked ABB 6400's at RoboFold, running from our own custom GH robotics simulator and post processor, and we have written a 3-axis CAM plugin for GH. I look forward to seeing your project - Greg, RoboFold. www.robofold.com

Comment by Nicholas Cecchi on February 5, 2013 at 4:51pm: I am the lead designer at a fully Rhino/ Grasshopper integrated atelier. We have a budget for purchase of CNC technology each year.

A gantry table with plasma cutter is 35k +. I am finding robots for much, much less than that, but I am unclear on what software and hardware I need to integrate the robot as a milling/ plasma cutting tool.

Would

Rhino > KUKA prc > KRC2 Controller > KUKA Robot work?

or does there need to be a CAM setup inbetween those, like RhinoCAM or MasterCAM as such:

Rhino> KUKA prc > RhinoCAM > KRC2 Controller > KUKA Robot?

I am proficient in Grasshopper and am currently learning several coding languages, but I am still fairly new at this kind of hacking/ splicing of components. Any advice would be appreciated.