An overview of the plan

The plan is kind of simple: Figure out what options exist for the hardware controls of this little guy, and once 6 axis hardware control is available, begin looking at applying ML for brushstroke generation. As the robot is not inordinately huge, it can be ported to a mobile platform (like a cart), ideally run off large storage batteries and brought to events like farmers markets or technical fares like open sauce. It is fairly speedy, so it is possible

We do have some reasonable technical specs of the robot itself, max 3 kg load on the end effector, which is plenty for a paintbrush and some pneumatic hardware. ± 0.020 mm repeatability for position which is stellar if its actually achievable. The stock controller lists 1.5kw as the max power rating, which is a bit higher than I would have expected, but that likely includes the support computer and early 2000's control hardware. The arm itself only weighs 30kg and has the following speeds listed per axis:

Taking a look at the Manual

There's a few problems that need to be sorted, given that this is an early 2000's robot, all the control hardware would only be available surplus. This can become a pricey trap, as control cards, servo drives and all the specific custom hardware can add up. The next part is, with an early 2000's robot hardware setup, what is the software interface? If the result of acquiring all the pokemons is some terrible java interpreter or windows XP application, that's not really a great option either. What is the ideal interface for something like this project? That's also a good question. I like separating the hardware kinematics from the higher level functionality, as that should be fundamentally higher bandwidth, with the higher level controls operating in a coordinate space, while the lower level controls the acceleration boundaries.

So the first step is to find every manual and technical diagram we can to make some educated decisions. We're starting with the model number.

Adeptsix 300 Robot Manual Repository

For whatever reason these were not detailed directly from Adept so I am hosting these locally:

300CR Instruction Handbook:[Link]

This is a 106 page manual that details everything from physically mounting the robot to cable interconnection. It also details everything about axes movement to moment of inertia limits. It does not give us exact cable pinouts, but it does give us a hint on the auxiliary connections, for instance you get 9 wires for end of arm tooling signals. We also learn that each axes has a battery backup for absolute position [page 85]

PA-4 Power Chassis User Guide:[Link]

This is a 62 page manual detailing most of the functionality of Adept's "servo box". For all intents and purposes this is a chassis that accepts three power modules and one communications module. Different "AMP's" can plug into the chassis so the same chassis back plane can run multiple robots. The dual output amplifiers allow for six total axes of control. It looks like i would want three of the "E" style amplifier cards for my model robot and then a "MAI-2" robot control module card to govern these. This is starting to look like an expensive Easter egg hunt

SmartController User Guide:[Link]

This is a 160 page manual of a module that goes in between the PA-4 power chassis and a normal computer. It connects to a host PC over FireWire 😅. It also uses a lot of custom cable assemblies to mate to external hardware, like the pendant, which i also do not have. Reading through this manual is pointing me towards just building a controller from off the shelf hardware and a MESA card, which should be cheaper and at least completely duplicate-able and easier to understand. We are going to need to find some pinouts though for interfacing to the machine directly.

Adept Yaskawa 2BC Power Cable:[Link]

So i contacted Adept via academic intentions and got some rough photocopied images of the cable assembly drawings for this machine. It is curious that this is also cross-listed as a Yaskawa robot, it may be possible to find some more hardware details by contacting them directly as well.

Adept Yaskawa 1BC Signal Cable:[Link]

I was also able to obtain this drawing which is the signal routing. It's a bit hard to read and the labeling is multi-language but it is probably enough to work with. I have no idea what the mating connector actually is, which is going to be a struggle to find but we're on the right track.