Recently, Jake Lee, a maker and industrial designer from Taiwan, posted an Ultimate Cleaning Robot project called "Panda" at Instructables, an open-source hardware hot station.
Recently, Jake Lee, a maker and industrial designer from Taiwan, posted an Ultimate Cleaning Robot project called "Panda" at Instructables, an open-source hardware hot station.
In fact, this panda project is an improved version of Lee's previously designed cleaning robot, adding many features such as suction, sweeper and roller brush. According to Li Jiahong, the cleaning robot he designed in the past was a bit too small and had to be connected to a power source, towed by wires behind, which was detrimental to the freedom of movement of the machine. Therefore, his new design is much greater, the chassis size of 17 cm × 17 cm, whether it is desk or floor, can be cleaned or vacuum. The robot randomly selects its advanced direction and automatically detects cliffs or other obstacles.
The top, bottom, and center housing components of the sweeping robot, as well as the two battery lids, gearboxes and dust bin, were all 3D printed by Mr. Lee using a MakerBot 2x replicator 3D printer with 0.2 mm resolution. According to Xiao Bian, he printed a total of three prototypes of the robot before all the dimensions of the robot were finalized.
This robot uses multiple motors to drive its wheels, rollers, vacuum cleaners and fan blades. All of the electrical components are controlled by a single UNO board, and Lee uses PRO_E modeling software, but says that whatever software is available is right for you.
To enhance suction, Lee added a roller with a brush and a sweeper. One of the biggest challenges he faces in this area is how to design a suitable gear train to drive the drum and sweeper because they use less electricity. He eventually used three gears to connect the sweeper, drum, and motor. According to Lee, this not only saves battery power, but it also works well.
Lee took this project to the Instructables website's "3D Printing Contest," which currently does not have a full STL file because he plans to play another game, however, his Instructables page includes step-by-step instructions, A few useful videos and an eDrawing file for free download, which provides detailed information about its internal components and you may wish to check it in if you are interested. In short, he spent a full month on this project, but spend a much smaller, only NTD 164 for the purchase of parts.