Crawler Mechanism

2023-12-19 | By Jorvon Moss

License: See Original Project 3D Printing

crawler_1

I wanted a personal spider-like mechanism that has the ability to crawl around and is not a ‎hexapod. I decided to go and create a custom Klann mechanism that is easier to put together ‎than other designs. This tutorial will show you how to put together your own crawling ‎mechanism. ‎

The 3D model files for this build can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6345806 ‎

First, I recommend printing out the parts starting off with the casing and the gears. The gears are ‎fitted inside the casing, which holds them tightly in place. If necessary, washers can be added. ‎The interior diameter of the washer should be at least 20 mm.‎

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The gears are pretty simple. The three main gears that are next to each other are the ones that I ‎used for this build, but I did add two other top gears for people who want to change it up a bit and ‎add a coupler or even attach it to a servo. You can likely use one of the two top gears as your ‎driving gear.‎

gear_3

The gears are to be enclosed within the casing. The middle gear is the drive gear, and it will ‎rotate the two side gears that are connected to the legs. The leg pieces are labeled A, B, C, and ‎D to make it easier to see how they are set up. You will need to print four of each piece for each ‎cluster.‎

cluster_4

The finished clusters should look like this:‎

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After you have two of these, you can attach them to the gantry. Keep in mind that the gantry I ‎made is specifically for this design. I have also created other, simpler designs, and you are ‎welcome to design your own. The motor I used is a 357 RPM 6V metal gear motor from ‎DigiKey, made by DFRobot. It has a 4 mm diameter, so I am confident that most 4 mm diameter ‎motors will fit as a drive gear controller.‎

controller_6

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Parts:

FEATHER M0 BLUEFRUIT LE- (1528-1562-ND)

DC MOTOR + STEPPER FEATHERWING A (1528-1548-ND)

GEARMOTOR 357 RPM 6V METAL (1738-1287-ND)

To control this robot, I chose to use a Bluefruit Feather M0 and a Stepper Featherwing, both of ‎which are controlled via Bluetooth using the Adafruit Bluetooth app (Bluefruit Connect, available ‎on the Apple App Store and Google Play App Store). This is a simple, modular system that ‎stacks on top of each other. To use it, simply take the Bluefruit board, upload the code, stack the ‎stepper device on top, and turn it on. Then, use the Adafruit app on your phone to connect to and ‎control the robot.