Related Manuals for QB Robotics qb SoftClaw
Summary of Contents for QB Robotics qb SoftClaw
- Page 1 General Manual PLEASE READ CAREFULLY THESE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE USE. DO NOT DISCARD: KEEP FOR FUTURE REFERENCE. ...
- Page 2 Dear customer, Thank you for purchasing our product. The present document provides information at best of our knowledge at the time of publication. This document could present differences from the product and it is subject to changes without notice: the latest version is available on our webpage www.qbrobotics.com.
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Page 3: Table Of Contents
Table of Contents 1 Preface .......................... 1 Using this document Symbols and conventions Kit content 2 Safety..........................3 Intended use Safety instructions EC Directives on product safety Environmental conditions Environmental safety 3 Technical data ......................5 Mechanical dimensions Center of Mass Mechanical characteristics Electrical characteristics Tool connector pinout... -
Page 4: Preface
4 — PREFACE 1 Preface 1.1 Using this document The documentation must always be complete and in a perfectly readable state. Keep the document accessible to the operating and, if necessary, maintenance personnel at all times. Pass the document to any subsequent owner or user of the product. 1.2 Symbols and conventions STYLE DESCRIPTION... -
Page 5: Kit Content
Identifies the required tool to be used during the described assembly phase. Identifies file paths, file names and software functions. Monospaced text 1.3 Kit content The kit consists of: • N.1 qb SoftClaw; • N.1 ISO 9409-1-50-4-M6 tool flange adapter; • 24 VDC power supply unit with cables; •... -
Page 6: Safety
3 — SAFETY 2 Safety 2.1 Intended use The product design is intended for grasping objects up to 3700 g. Fragile, sharp or sharp-edged objects shall not be grasped. Objects having the main dimension greater than 200 mm shall not be grasped. The product is intended for installation on robotic arms: the safety features are established only for use as described in this document. -
Page 7: Environmental Conditions
Use in outdoor applications. 2.5 Environmental safety The qb SoftClaw must be disposed of in accordance with the applicable national laws, regulations and standards. All the components of this product have been chosen in accordance with the EU RoHS directive 2011/65/ EU: they are produced with restricted use of hazardous substances to protect the environment. -
Page 8: Technical Data
5 — TECHNICAL DATA 3 Technical data 3.1 Mechanical dimensions The figure below shows the overall dimensions of the qb SoftClaw; distances and tolerances in the drawing are noted in millimeters [mm] and degrees [°]. Figure 1. — qb SoftClaw drawings Be aware that the above figure may be out of scale. -
Page 9: Mechanical Characteristics
SOFTCLAW — 6 UNIT LEFT CoM x coordinate, O [mm] CoM y coordinate, O [mm] CoM z coordinate, O [mm] Weight [kg] 0.780 Center of Mass, O , is evaluated w.r.t. Σ considering the device mounted with its fixed finger facing the ground, cf. -
Page 10: Electrical Characteristics
7 — TECHNICAL DATA MINIMUM NOMINAL MAXIMUM Grasping force — 64.0 Grasping time — — Releasing time — — Look at the graph for details. 3.4 Electrical characteristics MINIMUM NOMINAL MAXIMUM Power supply [VDC] 23.1 24.8 voltage Power —... -
Page 11: Tool Connector Pinout
On the qb SoftClaw flange there is a Phoenix Contact 8-position M8 connector, A-coded, with gold-plated copper alloy contacts — Part Number: 1424232 The main cable of the qb SoftClaw is a Phoenix contact 3m free cable end with angled socket — Part Number: 1404192 The RS485 protocol characteristics are as follow: •... -
Page 12: Pad Exchange System
9 — TECHNICAL DATA WIRE COLOR DESCRIPTION White RS485+ Brown RS485- Green internal Yellow internal Gray 24V *** Pink GND *** Blue 24V *** GND *** *** 24VDC and GND must be provided by an isolated Power Supply Unit. Any error in the pins connection may cause irremediable damages to the device. - Page 13 SOFTCLAW — 10 Figure 4. — Different kind of available pad from qbrobotics (not included). Only flat pad is provided in the kit. For different or customized pad, please ask a quotation to qbrobotics.
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Page 14: Description
4 Description 4.1 General The qb SoftClaw is a compact, light and versatile Variable Stiffness Gripper. It's able to grasp objects of the most disparate nature, exploiting the intrinsic mechanical intelligence of its variable stiffness system, without the use of any type of sensors on the contact surfaces or specific algorithms on the absorbed current by the motors. -
Page 15: Characteristics And Key Features
SOFTCLAW — 12 commanded value. Small values allow to grip fragile and low-weight objects; on the contrary higher values can be used for heavy and rigid objects. 4.2 Characteristics and key features • Adaptive grasp; • Variable Stiffness grasp; • Interchangeable fingertips;... -
Page 16: Mounting And Wiring
13 — MOUNTING AND WIRING 5 Mounting and wiring 5.1 Tool mounting The qb SoftClaw Kit allows you to connect the device to your robot arm. Use only the screws provided within the package. Longer screws could damage the robot or the end-effector. -
Page 17: Cable Connections
Fix axially the device by tightening the 8 screws (5). You need the 2 mm Allen wrench. Table 1. — Installation guidelines of the qb SoftClaw on robot arm. 5.2 Cable connections To correctly wire the SoftClaw please follow the instructions in the table, using the provided kit. - Page 18 15 — MOUNTING AND WIRING Figure 5. — Connection kit for qb SoftClaw: power supply unit (A), RS485-USB converter (B), main cable (C1), USB cable (C2), power cable (C3), (C4) optional. INSTRUCTIONS Connect the main cable (C1) to the RS485-USB converter (B) terminal block.
- Page 19 SOFTCLAW — 16 INSTRUCTIONS Connect the main cable (C1) to the power supply unit (A). Pay attention to connect wires as follows: • GRAY wire → 24VDC; • RED wire → GND. Connect the power cable (C3) to the power supply unit (A).
- Page 20 YELLOW and GREEN wires on (C1) cable are optional. They are used to enable the button on the qb SoftClaw wrist flange as a Digital Input for the robot on which the gripper is mounted. If your robot provides digital inputs, you can connect one of these wires (for example the yellow one) to a digital input port.
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Page 21: Software
Ubuntu Packages qb SoftClaw nodes are derived from qbmove ones. If you have already installed them just upgrade to the new version or verify if you can launch SoftClaw control nodes. If you prefer to leave your catkin workspace as it is, you can simply install all the ROS packages from the... - Page 22 19 — SOFTWARE Sources Since you are interested in the ROS interfaces for our devices, it is assumed that you are familiar at least with the very basics of the ROS environment. If not, it might be useful to spend some of your time with catkin tutorials.
- Page 23 In a single-device system the synchronous mode is a nonsense. Figure 6. — qb SoftClaw ROS control mode schemes In both cases there is always one central Node which manages the shared resources for the serial communication (e.g.
- Page 24 To understand what is hiding under the hood, have a look at the C++ classes overview which sums up all the main concepts of our ROS packages: Figure 7. — qb SoftClaw ROS packages and classes overview Communication Handler The Communication Handler Node has no parameters to be set, therefore it is always launched like this: roslaunch qb_device_driver communication_handler.launch...
- Page 25 Control Modes For the sake of simplicity, we are going to cover all the control modes for a single qb SoftClaw, but it is just a matter of putting things together and set the launch file parameters properly to control several devices together.
- Page 26 23 — SOFTWARE remove it since the default value is ) and make a call to the Communication Handler false Service, when your system is ready, e.g. as follows: activate_motors rosservice call /communication_handler/activate_motors {"id: <actual_device_id>, max_repeats: 0"} Additional arguments • : The duration of the control loop expressed in seconds. control_duration [0.01] •...
- Page 27 This enables the right menu which provides all the controllers available for the connected device. Select the qb SoftClaw controller from the second drop-down menu and enable it through the circular button. A single slider will appear in the GUI to control the closure of the gripper, it takes both positive values (grip strength) and negative values (to open the claw).
- Page 28 You won't see any control interface in this case but the use_controller_gui qb SoftClaw should start moving according to the given trajectory, parsed from a yaml file located at the following path: qb_move_control/config/qbsoftclaw_waypoints.yaml Customization You can modify the waypoint trajectory to replicate the behavior you want: either change the or add another custom application-specific...
- Page 29 To help you in the best way we can, we are asking you to do the most suitable of the following steps: It is the first time you are holding a qb SoftClaw, or the first time you are using ROS, or even both: it is always a pleasure for us to solve your problems, but please consider first to read again the instructions above and the ROS tutorials.
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Page 30: C Api Library
API library in "qbmove_communications.h" your project. 6.2.2 Basic functions In most cases these are all the necessary functions to integrate the qb SoftClaw within your system. • : retrieves all the serial ports connected to the int RS485ListPorts(char **serial_ports) system, returns their number, and fills the given argument with the connected serial port names;... - Page 31 • void commSetPosStiff(comm_settings *file_descriptor, int device_id, short int : sends a reference grasp strength command to the qb SoftClaw with the given id; only inputs[2]) the first value is meaningful while the second must be always 0. is expressed in motor...
- Page 32 << "])." << std::endl; return std::cout << "INFO: \tconnected to qb device..." << std::endl; // Start using qb SoftClaw device_id = 1; commActivate(&file_descriptor, device_id, TRUE); //activate motor usleep(10000); char status; result = commGetActivate(&file_descriptor, device_id, &status); (result != 0) { std::cout <<...
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Page 33: Configuration Gui
SOFTCLAW — 30 std::cout << "INFO: \tstrong grasp" << std::endl; usleep(5000000); commands[0] = -2200; // fully open value commands[1] = 0; // must be always 0 commSetPosStiff(&file_descriptor, device_id, commands); std::cout << "INFO: \tqb SoftClaw fully open" << std::endl; usleep(1000000); // ... commActivate(&file_descriptor, device_id, FALSE);... - Page 34 31 — SOFTWARE 6.3.2 Usage The qb SoftClaw GUI (generally referred as qbtools) is a simple application to quickly test the basic functionalities of the device through a personal computer. It may be also useful to diagnose — together to support team —...
- Page 35 Depending on the control modality set, it is possible to set the strength (position Input and sliders: command to motors) and the stiffness of the qbmove using sliders. The qb SoftClaw behaviour described in datasheet can be tested moving only the position slider, and setting the stiffness to 0. Changing stiffness...
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Page 36: Maintenance And Warranty
33 — MAINTENANCE AND WARRANTY 7 Maintenance and warranty 7.1 General Products of the company qbrobotics s.r.l. are produced using the most modern production methods and are subject of strict quality inspections. All sales and deliveries are performed exclusively based on our General Conditions of Sale and Delivery, which can be viewed on the qbrobotics home page qbrobotics s.r.l. - Page 37 SOFTCLAW — 34 For any support request please contact our support team mailto:support@qbrobotics.com...
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Page 38: Faq And Troubleshooting
8.1.2 Solution You can find all the USB flash drive files in our download section at the bottom of the qb SoftClaw page If any of the files is corrupted we recommend to format the flash drive and download again all ... - Page 39 SOFTCLAW — 36 8.2.2 Drivers installation If you are using either Microsoft Windows or Apple macOS it is necessary to download and install the communication drivers from the FTDI VCP Drivers page. Linux Ubuntu LINUX FRIENDLY: You do not need additional drivers if you are running on any Linux distribution. However, if you have never set it up, you probably need to add your linux user to the group to dialout...
- Page 40 37 — FAQ AND TROUBLESHOOTING 4. lastly, choose from the drop-down menu a number between `COM` `COM1` and click on `COM9` "OK" 8.2.3 API installation requirements Before using the qbAPI on your system, if not already installed it is good use to install a c++ compiler. Below here are listed all the necessary instructions for each operative system.