Chip-E Universal Expansion Kit by cordovalabs

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

The Chip-E Universal Expansion Kit (Chip-E UEK) is a set of replacement parts for the RobotGeek 'Chip-E' - Open Source Arduino 3D Printed Robot. The Chip-E UEK (Chip-E Universal Expansion Kit) was designed for the Chip-E Remix Chanage.
The Chip-E UEK was designed to add Makerbeam aluminum extrusions to the outside corners of the body. These 100mm Makerbeam extrusions replaces all the standoffs that were used to hold the body of the Chip-E together (the Arduino standoffs are still needed). The Chip-E UEK's Makerbeam extrusions offer convenient hard points mounts for other external mods and/or add-ons. Additionally, the operator now has the ability to get to any part within the Chip-E UEK by only removing 4 M3 bolts.
Design Project: N/A
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Printed Parts needed:
1x Head_MB_Mod
1x Top_MB_Mod
1x Midsection_MB_Mod
1x Base_MB_Mod
1x Shoe_Left from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1795648
1x Shoe_Right from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1795648
1x Foot_Left from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1795648
1x Foot_Right from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1795648
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Hardware Needed:
Part that are listed in the original Chip-E's Part List or The Chip-E Kit
Up to 15x M3 nuts with Up to 15x M3 6mm Square Head Bolts or Up to 15x M3 nuts with Up to 15x M3 6mm Wing Type Head Bolts
8x M3 Screws (I used M3x16 but use a minimum of a M3x12)
4x Makerbeam Extruded Aluminium Beams 100mm
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Info on Building:
See the Build instructions for Chip-E Universal Expansion Kit REV 0.pdf for Build instructions.
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Info on the Design:
Up until the weekend of July 8th and 9th, I was not planning on entering the Chip-E Remix Chanage. But after seeing Flying Chip-E and the very cool The Zip-E Chip-E, I thought to myself, "These technical designs would be a lot easier if the Chip-E had the flexibility that some of my Sci Oly designs do".
As such I set myself the goal of making a Chip-E that had at least one aluminum extrusion built in. It turned out that having 4 would give me even more versatility in the Chip-E UEK.
I am a big fan of the use of aluminum extrusion in my designs. They offer an easy way of attaching something new to a design after the fact, and orders of magnitude easier than go through all the steps of remaking or remixing the original design files. After adding in the Makerbeam, I think the Chip-E has become more valuable to me as it could be a platform for future Science Olympiad or other Robotic competitions. I can now tack on tools, and end-effectors to the Chip-E (UEK) as needed to meet rules, to complete tasks, or just for the fun or it.
On a side note, I left the slope on the head of the Chip-E UEK in the hopes that the robot would retain some of its character that the original Chip-E had. However, I have yet to decide if it is worth keeping or not. I may in the future Remix my Remix to remove the slope and give it a block head.
Below are the "Should Include" for the Chip-E Remix Challenge:
Explaining your changes:
As noted above, I have added Makerbeam Aluminum extrusions to the corners of the Chip-E. This offers three advantages over the original design:
The user can access any level of the body by removing a maximum of 4 M3 screws.
Creates hard point mounts for future mods and/or add-ons
Removes and replaces the standoffs that where used to hold the body of the CHip-E together.
I hope that the Chip-E UEK means people that are not comfortable with or don't have the ability to work on other peoples CAD files can create mods for the platform.
How you remixed:
After importing and converting the *.step files that Robotgeeks included with the original Chip-E uploaded into something Fusion 360 can use, I started by figuring out how much space I could take away from the inside and still have the Chip-E be big enough for its hardware. It turned out I needed to leave as much space as I could so I did not interfere with the power plug, LCD, or battery.
As such, it was a lot easier to redesign the original body parts to hold about 1/2 of the Makerbeam and then extent the body left and right to make the Makerbeam flush with the edges of the body.
I then added the blocky corners to the head and base to allow for them to be attached to the Makerbeam with M3 screwes. Due to the limited hardware I had on hand, I designed the through hole corners to be compatible with the M3 x 16 screws I had on hand. This required me to thicken the Top (plate) to fill in the gap left by a missing 3 mm in the overall height of the Chip-E. I added walls to the bottom part of the Top Plate to allow for the Arduino standoffs to still function as designed.
Finally I added way to may holes into the midsection to allow for the midsection to be attached to the Makerbeam. This is not me just punching holes for the fun of it, I was trying to give the user of this design the flexibility to use any bolt pattern they want.
Any new skills you have given to Chip-E:
I gave Chip-E the ability to be expandable and modifiable without the person doing the changes having to completely redesign the body of the Clip-E.
Document the changes:
Noted Above