Introduction: Gripper Made of Soft Muscles (Actuators)

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About: I'm Electrical Engineer from Pakistan institute of Engineering and Applied sciences Islamabad, Currently working as a Research Assistant at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. My area of Interests are Biomedical…

In my previous tutorial I have explained the manufacturing of the soft muscle (actuator), in this tutorial we will use four of those muscles to make a gripper that will be able to grasp and hold an object.

If you haven’t watched my previous tutorial than watch it first because in this tutorial I will use the soft muscle and won’t explain the method of its fabrication.

In order to make the gripper following things are required, I will link the sites from where you can get these item.

Step 1: Soft Muscle (Actuator)

Step 2: Packing Foam Sheets

Step 3: Zip Ties

Step 4: Silicone Pipe

Step 5: Silicone Tube Connector

Step 6: Wire Cutter

Step 7: File Rasp

Step 8: Links:

  1. Soft Muscle (Actuator)
  2. Packing Foam Sheets
  3. Zip Ties
  4. Silicone Pipe
  5. Silicone Tube Connector
  6. Wire Cutter
  7. File Rasp

All these links are only for references.

Now i will explain the step wise making of gripper


Step 9: Combine Zip Ties

Take Two Zip Ties and combine them together as shown in figure (in case your zip tie is smaller).

Step 10: Insert Zip Tie Inside Foam

Attach your zip tie with the side wall of rasp and insert the rasp inside the foam along with the zip tie. Remove the rasp and zip tie from other side of the foam. We did this because due to the flexible nature of the tie, it's difficult to keep it align inside the foam so to avoid that we use the rasp.

Step 11: Placement of Soft Muscle

Now place the two muscles at the opposite ends of the foam as shown in the fig and tighten them with the help of zip tie, which we inserted earlier. Remove the remaining zip tie with the help of cutter.
Again repeat this and previous step for remaining two muscles.

Step 12: Placement of Connectors

  1. Place the four connectors as shown in the figure. Two connectors are two way connectors, plugged in pipe opposite to each other, similarly other two are three way connectors, plugged in other two muscles.
  2. No cut two small pieces of pipe and attach one three way connector with its adjacent two way connector through a pipe, repeat this for the other two, shown in the figure.

Step 13: Final Touch

  1. Now take a T-connector (three way) and attach small pieces of pipe with its two ends and a larger pipe with the other end as shown in the figure.
  2. Attach the ends of smaller pipes with the two connectors present in our assembly, shown in figure.

Step 14: Here We Go....