3D PRINTING-KUKA PRC - ISSUE COLLISION

[andreas5391]

Dear Team

I am new to this, so please be patient with my ignorance. I have the attached file code and i am trying to print with the arm along the vase geomtry and i have attempted to solve this with a bit of anorthodox way. However, although planes seem to work ok the arm moves in a very unpredictable way and it creates collisions. I would appreciate any help from you. Please find attached the file

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xYE7csdqjzUVsaywFDNs9zkEFBzsyIU9/view?usp=sharing

Regards Andreas

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello Andreas,

Thank you for getting in touch! I had a look at your file, unfortunately the three curves at the beginning are missing, so I cannot look at your exact problem.
Regarding unpredictable movements, I only see in the settings that you have "Interpolate Movements" un-selected, which I do not recommend for a reliable simulation. For further troubleshooting it would be great to get the complete file and a clearer description what "unpredictable" means in that case.
Also, I have changed your username so that it does not consist of your eMail address, assuming that you do not want that to be too public.

Best,
Johannes

[andreas5391]

Dear Johannes,

I want to initially thank you for you imediate support and sorry for the late reply. I still have the issue. I have internalised the curves in the code in order to understand, unpredictable movements. I have been struggling to make this work for the past days and no good news yet. I want to print along with the surface geometry. Please have a look on the new functional code and let me know if you have any better ideas.  I was thinking if there is any way to print this having the last axis stable in order to avoid any cables cut offs. I would really appreciate an answer.

Regards Andreas

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello Andreas,

I had a longer look at your file, the general programming strategy looks sound, but I cannot find an "easy" solution for your toolpathing. Especially the lower part has got an extreme angle that leads to the robot winding itself up and/or colliding with its own tool.
Also, if your extruder is a pellet extruder, can you even print these steep angles? I would be concerned about that as you usually need gravity to feed your pellets.

With a less extreme lower curve and some tuning on the position (better do that via the base values, though) you can get a similar project to run, see my attached file.
If you want to print exactly what you have, you are probably going to need a turntable. Or mount the build plate onto the robot and place the extruder somewhere statically.

Best,
Johannes

[andreas5391]

Dear Johannes

Thank you so much for your immediate answer. If i have any updates for a better solution i will post it over the forum.

Regards Andreas

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello Andreas,
Perfect!

The problem with the robots is that there are so many aspects where you can tune. For example for the lower parts of your test piece, a different tool geometry would help a lot, but in turn would cause problems further up. Then the position of the 3D print within the robot's workspace makes a big difference, and of course also the orientation of the tool within the constraints of the physical process.
A dedicated software could have some optimization strategy ready to help, but KUKA|prc is used for countless applications, each with different parameters, so that is more up to the user. That being said, at least for prototypes, intuitive interaction with the parametric object is often faster than setting up an optimization process - that is one of the strengths of GH as a platform, in my opinion.

Best,
Johannes

[andreas5391]

Dear Johannes

Good Morning, i hope u doing alright . I do believe that grasshopper in combination with kuka prc can give amazing  and customized solutions in the field of digital fabrication. Any chance you have tutorials related to this kind of non-planar 3d printing process using KUKA prc. I want to give a try for a better solution and tutorials might help me out.

Regards Andreas

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello Andreas,

Unfortunately I don't have any tutorials specifically on that. Martin Krcma was a visiting researcher at my department and realized some super interesting non-planar strategies for 3D printing, recently published here: https://doi.org/10.1089/3dp.2022.0097
If you get stuck on a particular problem, I'm of course happy to take a look at the code!

Best,
Johannes