Hello everyone, my name is Andrew Kistler, and I am spending my summer in Golden Colorado at Colorado School of Mines. For the next seven weeks, I will be working in the M3 Robotics lab with Dr. Andrew Petruska as well as some graduate and undergraduate students.
This week in the lab we spent a lot of time working on getting the gantry system ready for its first test.
I was tasked along with the mechanical engineering undergraduate student to work on mounting the gears and chain on to the carriage. In order to do this, we had to mount the end plates. The endplates are used to put the tension on the chain. It was super important that all the slack is pulled out of the chain when we tensioned it as any amount of slack could affect the carriages ability to move. We also mounted the motor and gears onto the carriage and tested to make sure the carriage was able to move without issue.
Carriage with chain and gears installed
End plates with chain tensioned
In addition to this, we also spent a lot of time routing cables through some massive cable chains. The cable chains are super important because when the gantry moves it ensures that no cables get snagged of tangled. Because the gantry relies on a lot of sensors to know its location, if one of the cables breaks it could cause a critical failure of the entire gantry system. It was also super important that we routed the cables in the right way so that they could span the maximum distance required. The Gantry system will likely go as far away as possible from where all the wires are plugged in and it is important that they are able to span that entire length without snagging or being put under too much tension. Routing these cables was super tedious as we had to route over 40 ft of cable, but nonetheless, it was extremely important that this job was done well.
Cable chain connected to the carriage
I was also tasked with working on a system that protects that chain from the large amount of dust that is going to be in the test bed. The lab wants to use an aluminum expandable ducting tube, similar to what’s used on a dryer, because it can expand and ensure that the chain is fully covered when the carriage is moving. I was tasked with mounting the tubing. I used Solidworks to put together a simple design that will mount the tubing to the carriage. My plan is to slide the round end into the tubing and then secure the tube to the mount with hose clamps. This project was somewhat put on the back burner this week as the lab is scrambling to get the gantry up and running.
Mount for the chain protection tubing
Finally, I worked on a 3d printer for the lab. In order to 3d print something you have to slice the 3d model in a way that a 3d printer can understand and know all the steps to 3d print something. This is called a gcode. The gcodes vary depending on the printer being used. There a programs that slice parts for you. We’ve been using Prusaslicer for all of our slicing. The issue we faced though is that the 3d printer is a generic brand and there isn’t a preset profile on Prusaslicer. Because of this, we weren’t able to get the gcodes for thsi printer off of Prusaslicer. So an intern and I have had to research gcodes from other printers and modify them to suite the labs printer. We’ve got almost everything working. The only thing that needs to be fixed is what the 3d printer does after the print is done, as we have had prints where the printer’s extruder slams into the print and breaks it when it finishes printing.
Modified gcode for the labs printer
This week outside my internship I went mountain biking at a really difficult but beautiful trail center called Mount Falcon which is only about 20 minutes away from where I’m living. 
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