Hi everyone! My name is Nikolay and I am new to the forum.
First off, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to everyone that has contributed work towards this initiative and shared so much valuable knowledge! Thank you!
Now, a bit about me - I am trained as an architect and recently have been investigating various automation technologies available to architects to prototype all the way to real world implementations. My research lead me to elaborate my knowledge about using a robotic arm and naturally found out about KUKA| PRC trough Karl Singlein`s you tube channel.
I have noticed that some companies already implementing that setup (robot arm + concrete extruder, like XtreeE -
https://xtreee.com/en/ ) are mostly using ABB robots. And, as I am considering acquiring potentially a robot arm for my research work printing in clay initially, I would like to know if there are a compelling reasons for ABB vs KUKA robot arm and can ABB robots be controlled though the KUKA|prc under grasshopper. I find this tool genuinely intuitive and really making robot arms move accessible to people like me.
Any advice for the best setups (software + hardware) for 3d printing with a robot arm will be much appreciated. Budget will be limited as I need to invest myself and get to experimenting in with the technologies and develop adequately adapted designs.
Obviously, I looked at the cheapest options :) of old KUKA robots, read also the guidelines by Prof. Johannes Braumann to stay away from older KRC1 control units like this one -
https://www.ebay.fr/itm/384861283186?hash=item599b852372:g:8h4AAOSwR2liSuE0And perhaps more recent examples like this -
https://www.ebay.fr/itm/325131459810?hash=item4bb3585ce2:g:PscAAOSwUtJiSriL might make more sense.
I would like to understand better the limitations of older robots, so far i understood that the bottelnecks could be when printing more complex geometries like this for example (
https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/07/concrete-choreography-3d-printed-columns-stage-eth-zurich-students-switzerland_dezeen_2364_col_0.jpg . Is it more to it is there work around like running the robot directly form a PC.
With regards to size (reachability) and payloads - i would like to be able to carry an extruder that can print lets say clay and perhaps mortar mixtures at some point, elements of lets say in teh cubic meter range.
So , in short that summarises the storm of ideas in my head and believe could do with some guidance - thanks in advance!