Robot Arm Obtained

One of the Omaha Maker Group's generous members donated some robot arms a while back. A couple of them had some mechanical issues, and we've stripped those for parts. Some of the remaining arms are reserved to possibly share with some other groups. This leaves a few that are mostly just being stored. Today while I was at the Makery I claimed one of the remaining arms and brought it home. I'm not down at the space often enough to make much progress working on an arm there, so I figure I'll work on it here at Whelwick.

First step is to hose the danged thing off; it's incrusted with old oil and grease, into which is embedded dust, grime, and cat hair, all of which is infused with a funk of barn with overtones of old machine shop and dank basement.

So, first a spray with the garden hose, then couple of good soakings with engine degreaser (my phone ate the picture of it coated in nice white foam :( ). This was followed by a couple more sprayings. This removed the bulk of the grime and cat hair. I followed this with some paper towels and Simple Green, some Oops for the tape gunk, etc. Then I spent a while blowing it all out with the leaf blower to get it reasonable dry.

As part of the cleaning and drying I removed the cover panels and discovered that the cast iron base on this particular arm has cracked. I could probably braze this, but since we scrapped a couple of identical arms, we've got a couple of spare bases sitting around. I'll pick one of those up next time I'm there and replace this one.

After a couple of hours of cleanup work, it still has a little bit of an odor, but it's fit to sit on the bench and wait for more technical attention.