Soft robotics

Creating the model

With Fusion360 I decided to create a “Y“ model where the edges are round down. When creating the air passage you have to consider to make them smaller (height) than the whole model in order to create a base for it. In this case, my “Y“ has a height of 2cm and the air passage 1cm.
Besides that, I round off the inner edges of the bottom, in hopes of an easier removing of the silicon.
After finishing my model in Fusion360 I exported it as an stl file in order to export it to Cura.
There I adjust the size of the model and prepare it for the 3D printer(Ultimaker2+).Printing itself just took about 1 1/2 hours. But unfortunately, it turned out I little bit small.

Making the silicon model
I mixedEcofelx A with Ecofelx B. Here it was important to consider the rule of 50:50 of each for that we used a scale. After filling the mixture into the model I let it dry. For this I put the model into an oven which was preheated on 70 degree for 15 minutes. After letting it cool for a few minutes I tried to take it out the model. It was a bit tricky but it worked out, so the silicon model was not damaged.

With the rest of the Ecoflex mixture I created a thin layer, which I also let dry in the oven.
After letting it cool I could glued it on my model. It created the base. To make sure the air passages are really closed I took care that all edges are really well glued together, in order no air will slip through little holes.
And again it needed time to dry this time overnight.

To turn the model into a gripper I inserted a needle with an air passage into the center of the model. The needle was connected to a bigger air tube and than to the air pump motor.