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Improved Nylon Muscles

A project log for Material Linear-Actuator for Robotics

Basically you can turn regular fishing line and nichrome wire into a linear actuator that can contract much like a human muscle.

brandon-t-woodBrandon T. Wood 07/31/2018 at 01:150 Comments

While trying to automate my twisting process I sped up the RPM of my drill and found that it produced a much more uniform set of wraps. (See picture with LED of higher RPM versus lower RPM.) Additionally after rereading some white-papers I found that the annealing temperature of 275F was far below what the paper suggested, 350F. When I switched to this latter temperature the muscle that produced was stiffer, tighter and contracted more. (See picture with alligator clamps for difference between two temperatures.) Between both these advancements I have been able to create much more efficient single strands.

I will update at the end of the week with some videos of new Hydrocordial muscles in action. I am saving up for a higher quality camera so I can make some end-to-end videos about producing your own muscle as these white papers over complicate the process.

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