Assembly

instructions
ARM MODULE Issued: 17.12.2022
Update

rev01

INTRODUCTION
In this section you will get all the required steps to properly assemble whole arm piece,
including wrist bearing. Hand piece has been left as a separate module on purpose
since you may want to decide to attach your own tool or design instead of my hand
piece (which I will anyway share).

The goal of the arm piece is to provide all 3 degrees of freedom, meaning torsion
(achieve by the wrist/forearm custom bearing), bending (achieved by means of the
elbow joint) and shifting (not actively needed but the user, but still necessary to
compensate the arm shift when moving the shoulder).

Additionally, the arm design is such that you can add internally some elastic bands in
order to stabilize it in a flexed 90° position.
This means that we curling the with a weight in your hand the exo arm will support the
movement based on the force of the elastic elements you used.

Eventually you may want to use simple pulleys and engineer the design in such a way of
placing a motor at shoulder level in order to turn the exos into a semi active one.
I have tested this solution too at the beginning and it works quite smoothly so it's up to
you.

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
WRIST ASSEMBLY

First step is going to be the assembly of the custom wrist bearing to the forearm piece.
This is similar to the custom shoulder bearing you have already seen for the 3U1 design,
just more engineered in such a way to allow rotational movement rather than linear one.
Follow the picture below to place the components as indicated.
Assembly direction of the components (before spheres insertion) should be according
to the picture below in the indicated order.

8X STEEL SPHERES
(2 RAILS)

2X M8X15 BOLTS
2X M8 NUTS

CENTERING FEATURE
(NO ASSEMBLY NEEDED)

2X M3X10 BOLTS

2
1

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Reported scheme is valid for both wrist components (red and white in the picture) as
they can be both mounted separately without clashing.
Once both are in place, steel spheres have been inserted from the side in the dedicated
rails and locked by means of the Wrist_lock components, the bearing will stay in place
by itself.
Take into account that spheres assembly is strictly necessary to prevent disassembly.
Bearing cannot work or stay in position without them.
You will have at this point the following assembly:

Capable of performing a x rotation which is the first degree of freedom.

The range of motion is complete, meaning you could theoretically rotate it for the
whole 360°. This ha been chosen in order to allow the assembly of different types of
tooling depending on the need.
If you feel it's excessive or you would like to avoid overextensions or dangerous
movements, feel free to tweak it and add any hard stop you prefer in the required
position.

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
FOREARM ASSEMBLY
Once you have the wrist bearing, forearm assembly is quite straight forward by following
the picture below and joining together the four indicated pieces.

4X M6X20 BOLTS
4X M6 NUTS

4X M6X15 BOLTS
4X M6 NUTS

You can notice the specific design of the forearm piece which is attached to the wrist
bearing. In this case, the two could have been designed and printed as a single
component avoiding the additional connection.
However, I decided to go on with this solution since it makes very easy for the user to
quickly mount different types of wrist/tool modules.
Assuming for example you have different types of tools mounted on your wrist bearing,
you could print multiple of them and have them ready to mount/dismount depending
on the occasion.

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
ARM ASSEMBLY
Before proceeding to the final assembly, join together the bicep piece with the two
Elbow_Bracket_U pieces according to the picture below.
Additionaly, press fit the two 608 ball bearings in the dedicated stlos.

4X M6X15 BOLTS
4X M6 NUTS
2X 608RS BALL BEARINGS

At this point, you can joint the two sub assemblies obtained until now in a single piece
(following the picture below) and you will have the whole arm exoskeleton ready.

2X M8X15 BOLTS
2X M8 NUTS

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
 You have at this point the whole arm ready and you can go by wearing it on your arm
and testing some movements.

As mentioned before, the arm frame is designed in such a way that has inner empty
channels inside which you can add elastic bands (about 20mm wide) or pulleys in
order to achieve the level of support desired.
Hereby you can find a reference scheme to assemble such bands but of course you can
customize the build according to your need.

ADDITIONAL SLOT FOR

EVENTUAL ELASTIC BAND 2

ELASTIC BAND 1 IN ELASTIC BAND 1 OUT

ELASTIC BAND 1 WILL PASS

ALL INSIDE THE FOREARM
INNER CHANNEL AND COME
OUT FOLLOWING THE DOT
BLUE ARROWS

ELASTIC BAND 2 LOCKING

POINT (USE ANY LOCKING
FEATURE YOU PREFER IF YOU
ADD THIS ELASTIC BAND)

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
 ELASTIC BAND 3 IN ELASTIC BAND 3 OUT

ELASTIC BAND 3 LOCKING

POINT (USE ANY LOCKING
FEATURE YOU PREFER IF YOU
ADD THIS ELASTIC BAND)

You can notice a total number of 3 elastic bands that can be added with the current
design. Band 1 is the most important and will already provide a good amount of support
to the whole arm but, should you need them, also band 2 and 3 can be added or
eventually the 3 of them can be combined or replaced with a different pulling system.

One more feature you will notice on this piece, is a dovetail on the side bicep piece. This
is going to be needed for assembly on the shoulder piece in order to allow a minimum
linear motion to compensate the exo/body shift during movements.

I anticipate you that this happens in every ball joint that we have in our body. When
replicating them with a joint that has an axis offset in fact, an additional shift between
the exoskeleton and the frame will occur and will need to be taken into account in order
to avoid the exo falling out from the user or create discomfort.

I will focus on this aspect on the shoulder section. Meanwhile enjoy your arm piece.

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
ARM PIECE Print settings

This section will provide a preview of suggested print settings and orientation for the
mentioned components in the ARM PIECE. in order to maximize resistance and guarantee
proper functionality.
User is free to modify or change them according to his/her experience.

PRINT ORIENTATION

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
PRINT SETTINGS (Suggested only)
Numer of walls: 4 min.
Upper layers: 4 min.
Bottom layers: 4min.
Layer height: 0.2mm max
Infill: 20% Zigzag
Suggested filament color: RED

This document is issued by Andrea Piccinno and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.