GroG,

I'm new to Robotlab but not to electronics or programming.  I've read all the forum entries and it appears as tho your the one to answer my question.

The project I'm developing is a pick and place machine for smt parts using a robot arm rather than an x-y-x table.  I realize that the accuracy isn't as good as a table buit I think I have a solution.

The arm I'm using is a Lynxmotion with tweezers for a gripper and 1 or 2 cameras for final positioning.

The cad program I use exports a Pick and Place list with the X-Y co-ordinates of each part.  The program will import this list and display each line on a 4x20 LCD.  On command the arm will move to a part pickup station, use pattern recognition to pick the part, move to the designated co-ordinates, +- .050", where the on arm camera(s) will do pattern recognition for the final placement, place the part and return home and wait for the next part.

My question is, is Robotlab the right program to use?  If not can you recommend a program to use?

 

Thanks for help

Hugh

GroG

11 years 3 months ago

The short answer :
Yes - MyRobotLab (MRL) is a framwork which can absorb or create pretty much any functionality including a pick  & place system.

The details:
Another question you might be interested in is, "Does MRL currently have the functionality to  run a Pick & Place system".  Probably not right this minute.  MRL currently utilizes OpenCV and can do tracking.  For control systems it knows how to control Servos & Arduinos - Although, I don't know the details of how to control a Lynxmotion arm.  I assume it wants  some serial protocol which translates to positions of the servos?

I'd be interested in helping you develop your project.  For the "next step", I would recommend you making a detailed post of your project with relevant links to documents or pages which have the serial API for the arm.  Here is a list of items which would help.

  • List of components (Arms, Camera(s), Computer(s), Operating systems)   
  • Model numbers of Arms and Links to serial communication protocol
  • Description of the state of the project at this time - e.g. Arm is attached to computer, camera is attached to arm .. etc etc
  • Pictures, pictures, pictures - or video !  A picture says 1000 words - so a video can be 60 fps X 1000 words :)

Sounds like fun !

GroG.