2.77 Seek and Geek #9: Black and Decker Electronic Screwdriver

So for my FASBot, I decided to use this electric screwdriver with a nut driver attachment to performing my fastening. This is my machine's "spindle", though I've modified it in order to better fit into my machine. First, to reverse-engineer it!

The whole thing comes apart in four pieces. One piece, the black one to the left, contains the tool holder and a planetary gearbox. In the middle, an orange housing separates into two halves, which houses the drive motor, a triggering mechanism, and the detachable battery pack. Because my machine will have its own power, I can chuck the batteries, which eliminates the need for about half of the orange housing. 

These pins press into the orange housing sides and force the two halves to mate. 

A flexure provides the electrical contacts between the battery pack and the trigger mechanism on the rear side of the motor. 

Flexures also keep the battery pack attached to the orange housing. Press both ends in, and the battery pack detaches. Push the battery pack back into the orange housing and it'll click into place. 

The sun gear of the first stage in the planetary geartrain is attached to the motor shaft. You can see plenty of lubrication inside where the plastic gears live. 

You can see here the U-shaped pin that passes through two holes that go through the black gear housing and the orange housing, to couple the two together. 

This is the trigger mechanism in back of the motor. Push the trigger down, the motor spins one way. Push the trigger up and the motor spins the other. I looked into the mechanism and saw that there are flexural electrical contacts, one power, one ground, that the trigger interchangeably applies to the motor terminals to change the motor spin direction. 

Very cool! I will design a custom piece that holds the motor and mates with the black gearbox housing. 

2.77 Seek and Geek #8: Car Mirror Adjustment Mechanism

So my passenger-side mirror got busted on my car. Upon replacing it ( for only $25.00 on Amazon Prime and 10 minutes to repair), I decided to take it apart for my Seek and Geek! Making the most out of a busted mirror!

Here it is in its temporary-fix Gaff-taped glory. 

I used a chunk of a sheet or mirrored acrylic as a temporary fix so I could legally still drive (and practically still see behind me!). 

Putting the "Why?!" back in DIY (DIWhy?!?!?!)

The whole mirror assembly comes off with three self-tapping screws for plastic. There is a connector with three conductors, presumably for Motor1/Motor2-, Motor1+ and Motor2+. Using these three, you can spin both motors forward and reverse, but only one at a time. Foam gaskets are glued to the inside to dampen noise and catch any water/dust/roadstuff that may make its way in there. 

The glass is (was) connected to this inner face. There is a single snap-fit ball joint in the middle, about which the mirror pitches and rolls. Two additional smaller snap-fit ball joints, one on the bottom, and another on the right, are connected internally to the outputs of the motor assembly.

A better view of the middle ball joint, and the two ball-joints that connect to the motor outputs. The balls are at the ends of linear actuators. The motor assembly pushes or pulls the bottom ball of the mirror plate to aim it up or down, and pushed/pulls on the right ball to aim it left-right. 

A closer view of the motor assembly, with the big middle ball joint which acts as a pivot point for the mirror plate, and the two linear actuators, each with a ball end. Grease is applied liberally as lubricant. 

Upon taking the motor apart, you can see two small motors with identical transmissions that do a few things. 

First, a worm drive right out of the motor enables it to apply plenty of torque onto a long idler gear. This idler gear then attaches to the actuator output gear, which is threaded onto a screw. As the long idler gear spins, the big output gear also spins, and the ball output moves up or down along the screw. The idler gear is long enough to continually engage throughout the length of travel. 

(Idler gear removed). Here is the output threaded down to its lowest point. 

And here is the output stage threaded up to its highest point, about 0.75" of travel. 

Here is the plastic screw on which the output shaft spun. 

Taking a look underneath the Five Elastically Averaged Flexures used as the leadscrew "nut"! Smart! There are no limit switches or feedback control on the mechanism, so it isn't a servo, just an open loop motor. With these flexures, when the shaft output (the mirror angle) reaches its limit, the flexures move out of the way and it can click down or up along the plastic screw without causing damage to any device. BRILLIANT!

2.77 PUPS 5678 Pupdate (April 19)

ALL MCM PARTS HAVE BEEN ORDERED! Should Arrive by Wednesday, and I can build the structure around that and test them in time to have the whole machine working by next week. I need to pick up 2 more servos on Wednesday. 

And now, for the work that got me to this point:

Part 1 was uploaded on April 18, this is Part 2.