Box CAD

Main Design

The module box is designed to contain all the electronics and mechanical parts of the actuation system of the Hot Glue Kit. The box is composed of three parts: the container box, the motor holder and the lid. In order to increase the user friendliness, the module box is designed to be assembled and disassembled without any screws. This documentation provides the design of these parts which are developed in Autodesk Inventor and the necessary files can be found here. hotgluekit_moduleCAD

Container Box

This box is a rectangular container which will define the main geometry of the tendon module. It has an approximate width of 4 cm, depth of 5 cm and height of 3cm. These values are mainly determined by the LiPo battery size and the stacking of electronic components. Considering the tendon pulley and the tendon wire will require enough space to avoid tangling, this size of the box can be considered small for its intended usage. hotgluekit_container1
The interior configuration aims to have the LiPo battery on the bottom, the electronic parts on its top, and the DC gear motor on the level with the highlighted wall section shown on the right. This section has indents so that the motor holder part can easily slide through while holding the motor hanging on the wall. The tendon cable, which is attached to the pulley at the end of the motor shaft, goes through the hole on the wall which is located next to the motor holder hole. hotgluekit_container2
The remaining important features of the container are the power switch outlet and the lid placing indents. The highlighted rectangular hole on the lower part of the front wall is designed to let the power switch go through while keeping the rest of the electronics hidden behind the container walls. In order to avoid using screws to close the lid, two indents which are placed on the opposite side of a support column are placed as highlighted on the picture. These allow the lid to slide through the indents and stand securely on the support column. hotgluekit_container3

Motor Holder

This part is designed to secure the selected DC gear motor (Pololu microgear motor) to the wall while holding it above the electronics and its pulley shaft in line with the tendon hole on the container box. The highlighted section is carved out so that the motor body can fit. As shown in the container box section, the vertical wall of the motor holder slides through its corresponding section and fixes the motor. The geometry of the motor holder is designed to eliminate the motor's unwanted motions in the box in cases of loads on its shaft. hotgluekit_motorholder

Lid

The lid is a simple design which fits on the top of the container box. The most important feature of the lid is its extensions (highlighted on the image) on its lower front wall which allows it to slide into the necessary indents on the container box. With the spacing left on the opposite wall, these avoid the usage of screws while placing or removing the lid from the box. hotgluekit_lid