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1. Hardware Physical Installation
We (Rachel for MCubeLab) emailed Wahid Lahmadi at [email protected] requesting a Panda robotic arm from Franka Emika. In 2019 the quote was for a little over $24,000 USD and the Panda was shipped to us relatively quickly.
We opted to mount our Panda on an fairly large, heavy steel table. Specifically, an Ultra-Flat Extra Heavy Duty Table, 34" High x 48" Wide x 48" Deep (McMaster-Carr Product Number: 4769T594). Using the drilling guide provided with the Panda, we drilled the four mounting holes through the table. We specifically used a Stong Siko J1Z-23 Magnet-Drilling-Machine for ease of drilling. Its an inch thick of steel to drill through, so I would recommend having lots of Tap Magic available. We mounted the robot using:
- 18-8 Stainless Steel Split Lock Washer, 1/4" Screw Size, 0.26" ID, 0.487" OD (McMaster-Carr Product Number: 92146A029)
- 18-8 Stainless Steel Socket Head Screw, 1/4"-20 Thread Size, 2" Long, Partially Threaded (McMaster-Carr Product Number: 92196A550)
- 18-8 Stainless Steel Nylon-Insert Locknut, 1/4"-20 Thread Size (McMaster-Carr Product Number: 91831A029)
- 18-8 Stainless Steel Washer, 1/4" Screw Size, 0.281" ID, 0.625" OD (McMaster-Carr Product Number: 92141A029)
After drilling the holes but before mounting the robot, we opted to paint the table with a layer of enamel. This importantly prevents rusting and, less importantly, provides a nice matte finish to the table. We used "Rust-Oleum 312819 Stops Rust Satin Enamel Spray Paint 12 Oz, Coastal Gray". To apply the spray paint evenly, we purchased a "Rust-Oleum 243546 Standard Spray Grip". We found three coats to be sufficient.
The Panda comes with a brief tri-fold that guides you through plugging in each component. At the moment, we could not power the robot through the e-STOP cabling and are instead using a standard computer tower power cable. For the initial setup, we need to only plug the ethernet cable into the port on the robot (not on the controller box).
We constructed fabric walls that could be easily put up and taken down for the purpose of creating a blank background for robot videos. In each corner of the table, we placed a table magnet with a piece of 80-20 sticking up as a rod. We then created pockets in our fabric and stuck these through the poles. The fabric pockets were created with a combination of hot gluing and velcro and while it works, I'm not sure how much I'd recommend that exact process.
However, I would recommend the table magnets, aka Magnetic BasesToggle Switch because they are incredibly useful for mounting things (whether or not that is a fabric wall setup). For the fabric wall, to mount the poles, we purchased pre-cut 36 inch 80-20 (McMaster-Carr Product Number: 47065T101) and then tapped them to fit the Hex Thread Adaptors (McMaster-Carr Product Number: 95316A530) that screwed into the table magnets.