{"id":46435,"date":"2021-04-19T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/?p=46435"},"modified":"2021-04-12T15:00:44","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T19:00:44","slug":"how-i-designed-my-own-7-axis-industrial-robot-using-solidworks-and-3d-sculptor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2021\/04\/how-i-designed-my-own-7-axis-industrial-robot-using-solidworks-and-3d-sculptor.html","title":{"rendered":"How I Designed My Own 7-Axis Industrial Robot Using SOLIDWORKS and 3D Sculptor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I think it&#8217;s fair to say that many of us who&#8217;ve lived in or around the world of design, engineering, and\/or manufacturing have a particular fascination with industrial robots. There&#8217;s something about their ability to reliably perform repetitive operations (like moving objects, welding things &#8211; whatever it&#8217;s designed to do, really) that feels magical.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/3d-sculptor-3dexperience-2-2.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"1059\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re reading this right now, you might even design these robots yourself. As someone who&#8217;s long held an affinity for organic, non-uniform surfaces, I&#8217;ve always loved looking at the shapes of these robots as well. For something so potentially rigid in its range of tasks and operations, there&#8217;s something beautiful about the sometimes swoopy nature of their envelopes.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll find large industrial robots in many different types of factories, made to perform a variety of different actions. I&#8217;m not sure about you, but I wouldn&#8217;t be able to fit most of these anywhere near my house &#8211; regardless of how cool I think they are, or how much I like looking at them.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\">\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Building a 7 Axis Robot from Scratch\" width=\"1140\" height=\"641\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HMSLPefUVeE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So, what&#8217;s a maker to do if they want an industrial-style robot in their home workshop? If you were to ask Jeremy Fielding, he&#8217;d tell you: just make your own smaller-sized version from scratch. <em>Of course, right?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Me, personally? I&#8217;ll stick to writing about it for now. But I&#8217;d submit that one of the coolest things about the project embedded above is that Jeremy&#8217;s using a mixture of industry design tools &#8211; SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD (like a lot of you, I&#8217;m sure) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solidworks.com\/product\/3d-sculptor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>3D Sculptor<\/strong><\/a> <em>together\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; in order to get the fit, function, and finesse (3D Sculptor&#8217;s job here) right for the build.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/3d-sculptor-industrial-robotics2-2-scaled.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"406\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are lots of questions Jeremy considered for this build. For starters:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How much power would be needed to run 7 motors concurrently? How can you synchronize these to run correctly all at once?<\/li>\n<li>If power is lost somehow, how does one prevent the robot from collapsing or dropping a load mid-job?<\/li>\n<li>How can you manage costs of the build?<\/li>\n<li>How will the robot manage to support the load it must carry, especially when its arm is extended?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Choosing to do a robot build is interesting for several reasons. You combine mechanical concepts, motors, electrical work, programming, and more &#8211; a true multidisciplinary project. Being an articulated robot, Jeremy&#8217;s build has multiple pivot points to provide function and increased degrees of freedom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/solidworks-3d-sculptor-robot2-2-scaled.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"501\" \/><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll see in the video: Jeremy mentions this robot should reasonably be able to carry\/pivot around a 30 lb. load or so. There&#8217;s a crash course he provides on force loads things like articulating robots must reckon with, which may seem unobvious to people who don&#8217;t work with industrial machinery often. Which is to say: the force equation (F = m * a) comes into play big time, especially when considering how quickly you&#8217;d wish for your robot to swing its load from point 1 to point 2.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, there&#8217;s a DSLR camera mounted to the partially finished robot, which consists of both machined and 3D printed parts. One of the 3D printed parts is a sleek angle iron plate, located close to the base of the robot.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This was my first attempt at making a really curvy shape like this,&#8221; Jeremy tells his audience. &#8220;There are almost no flat surfaces on this part. That would be <em>extremely difficult<\/em> to model in SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD &#8211; at least for me, as I&#8217;m not much of a surface modeler. So, I tried out xShape [included in 3D Sculptor] for this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/solidworks-3d-sculptor-feature-image-2.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Jeremy&#8217;s example here proves you can use 3D Sculptor with other &#8216;xApp&#8217; roles (such as 3D Creator, containing xDesign)\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>or<\/strong><\/span> with SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD, via the <strong>3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE add-in (which comes with 3D Creator and\/or 3D Sculptor today to provide ready-made modeling flexibility for desktop users).<\/p>\n<p>In this introductory video of sorts (Jeremy has many more hours of footage and lessons to impart on this project!), Jeremy also reminds us of a super exciting launch coming our way later this year &#8211; first revealed by SOLIDWORKS CEO Gian Paolo Bassi at <strong>3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE World 2021. That is: just like Jeremy can use the combined powers of 3D modelers like SOLIDWORKS, 3D Sculptor, etc. for maker projects in his shop, you&#8217;ll be able to do the same very soon at an ultra-affordable price with the forthcoming release of <strong>3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers!<\/p>\n<p>While tools like SOLIDWORKS and 3D Sculptor are (and have been for some time) available to industry\/commercial users today, <strong>3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers will bundle <strong>3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Professional (including SOLIDWORKS Connected), 3D Sculptor, and 3D Creator for $99\/yr. (or $9.99\/mo.) specifically for maker use cases, empowering makers and hobbyists of all kinds &#8211; whether you&#8217;re making 7-axis scaled industrial robots or not.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to learn more about this offer, <a href=\"https:\/\/discover.solidworks.com\/3dexperience-solidworks-makers-available-2nd-half-2021\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>you can sign up for the mailing list here<\/strong><\/a>. This will ensure you receive product updates, including news of its release which is scheduled for later this year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>YouTube Engineer, SOLIDWORKS Champion, and Influencer Program member Jeremy Fielding (460k subscribers) is here to show you how you can design an industrial-style, 7-axis robot using SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD and 3D Sculptor.<\/p>\n... <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2021\/04\/how-i-designed-my-own-7-axis-industrial-robot-using-solidworks-and-3d-sculptor.html\">Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":46433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3045,3044,3285,563,50,3,26,826,14,2783,18],"tags":[3012,2989,1890,451,1403,3486,2969,848,1384,19],"class_list":["post-46435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3d-creator","category-3d-sculptor","category-3dexperienceworks","category-cloud-computing","category-collaboration","category-community","category-customer-stories","category-dassault-systmes","category-design","category-product-designers-and-mechanical-engineers","category-solidworks","tag-3d-creator","tag-3d-sculptor","tag-3dexperience","tag-cad","tag-concept-design","tag-electrical-work","tag-jeremy-fielding","tag-robotics","tag-robots","tag-solidworks-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46435"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46437,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46435\/revisions\/46437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}