Robotic arm?

[Kroslev Kerman]

How to make a robotic arm? and also is there a way to hook it up to my flight stick i have for easy control??

 

this is the flight stight i use btw https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-3D-Pro-Joystick-Windows/dp/B00009OY9U/ref=sxin_0_ac_d_rm?ac_md=0-0-ZmxpZ2h0IHN0aWNr-ac_d_rm&adgrpid=84563195194&cv_ct_cx=flight+stick&gclid=CjwKCAiA1L_xBRA2EiwAgcLKAw1Ap-T7ontbeU2HlAnyVpRml-T5VBxllJi7ph8Q6L_gvqsg5YWB8xoCiWwQAvD_BwE&hvadid=402244504709&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=20822&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=14084010174949527111&hvtargid=kwd-31679966&hydadcr=22334_11226423&keywords=flight+stick&pd_rd_i=B00009OY9U&pd_rd_r=759b2b45-3721-4555-88f6-ee4820f0d769&pd_rd_w=EIIlj&pd_rd_wg=E5vdc&pf_rd_p=ec111f65-4a46-499c-be78-f47997212bd0&pf_rd_r=MAGVP4H0VHFA8N5FY26Y&psc=1&qid=1580207931&sr=1-1-12d4272d-8adb-4121-8624-135149aa9081

please help 

[RizzoTheRat]

Breaking Ground or the FireSpitter mod are what you need for robotic arms, although there are some specific mods like Canadarm.

However I don't know if a way to tie it to a control stick.  In BG you can set up action groups to individual controllers so could potentially have an action group that manipulates all the joints to move the end of the arm in a specific direction, but you'd need a lot of action groups, and then map the action groups to the directions on your stick.  I believe IR's Sequencer works in a similar way too.

Another option would be to build your own controller in kOS but that would take a while too.

[Kroslev Kerman]

yeah i have breaking ground but what do i do with the hinges and stuff? like maybe a pic of a robotic arm i can copy then i will mess around with the controls

[RizzoTheRat]

You need the KAL-1000 controller as well as the hinges.  You add the hinges to the controller and then set up the position against time for each hinge on that controller.  There's a few tutorials around but I've only used them for simple preprogramed deploy/stow actions rather than controllable movement.

I found this video quite good to understand how the KAL-1000 works

 

[Okhin]

You can also simply use yaw/pitch/roll/steer/throttle and adds hinge control to axis instead of using the KAL-1000. The KAL-1000 is great for cyclic systems such as deploying things or rotating them or doing some nice choreography or light show. They're the equivalent of real life industrial automatons. With one serious limitations though : no input (so you cannot have conditions in KAL-1000 scripts, only cyclics and timed things).

However, you can link KAL-1000 play position to axis groups. So, for instance, you can use pitch to frive a KAL-1000 play position and get your actuators in a specific position. From there, you can have one KAL-1000 for each axis you want your robotic arm to move, and use the classic wasd keys to drive each axis controller. You might have to think about controller priority if one actuators is driven by several KAL-1000 (iirc, the position of an actuator is the pondered mean of its position offset in each KAL-1000).

I've done it at some point, need to retrieve that. Also, you might want to have action sets dedicated for your arm, in which pitch/roll/steer/yaw/throttle are not controlling the main craft.

Ok, found it, it's there on steam : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1885960231

It even have some small engines to propel the klaw at high enough speed. You need 1 m.s at impact with the klaw, but the arm is moving to slow for that, so there's a small engine and a piston to retract the klaw after being ropelled toward whatever (a small range though, like 2 meters or something like that).

Check the action groups on it, you'll see what I meant. I don't think there's a need for the KAL-1000 for just moving the arm around, it is used to impact.

And you have a lot of reach with it, because pistons.

[Kroslev Kerman]

that could work but i wanna make a realistic one or aka no pistons but i could make one my own tho thx for the help

[Okhin]

Well, I used the piston mainly as a range extender, I wanted to grab stuff passing around a station. You can use rectangular structs or I-beam to replace them, and only keep the hinges (and rotationnary servos). Or only use the piston as an inert surface (non powered and locked) to serve as bland tube with attach nodes on it.

[Daniel Prates]

On 1/28/2020 at 8:39 AM, Okhin said:

You can also simply use yaw/pitch/roll/steer/throttle and adds hinge control to axis instead of using the KAL-1000. The KAL-1000 is great for cyclic systems such as deploying things or rotating them or doing some nice choreography or light show. They're the equivalent of real life industrial automatons. With one serious limitations though : no input (so you cannot have conditions in KAL-1000 scripts, only cyclics and timed things).

However, you can link KAL-1000 play position to axis groups. So, for instance, you can use pitch to frive a KAL-1000 play position and get your actuators in a specific position. From there, you can have one KAL-1000 for each axis you want your robotic arm to move, and use the classic wasd keys to drive each axis controller. You might have to think about controller priority if one actuators is driven by several KAL-1000 (iirc, the position of an actuator is the pondered mean of its position offset in each KAL-1000).

I've done it at some point, need to retrieve that. Also, you might want to have action sets dedicated for your arm, in which pitch/roll/steer/yaw/throttle are not controlling the main craft.

Ok, found it, it's there on steam : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1885960231

It even have some small engines to propel the klaw at high enough speed. You need 1 m.s at impact with the klaw, but the arm is moving to slow for that, so there's a small engine and a piston to retract the klaw after being ropelled toward whatever (a small range though, like 2 meters or something like that).

Check the action groups on it, you'll see what I meant. I don't think there's a need for the KAL-1000 for just moving the arm around, it is used to impact.

And you have a lot of reach with it, because pistons.

This sure seems to be the only way, currently. But let's face it, it results a too cumbersome system to be enjoyable. The ideal would be a sort of mouse-guided arm, and you see potentially similar stuff in some mods. BDA has mouse-controlled firing turrets, and if I am not mistaken, retractable engines has a mouse-controlled spotlight or something like that. Now, configuring a couple of buttons where you could go foward/backwards with the arm, and using mouse guidance, would result a satisfying arm, wouldn't it? I think it would be manageable, the game would support such a thing, but someone would have to develop it first.

[Vanamonde]

Breaking Ground question moved to the Breaking Ground subforum. 

[Okhin]

Well, if you're going for mods, then you have mods which provides full fledged arms (such as Konstruction for instance, or Kanadarm which is, by itslef, a robotic arm iirc). You can probably map some actions to mouse action (probably not on mouse movement though). But you can move robotic arms in a not so cumbersome way, for a robotic arm with stocks. Just align various plane together, and probably use camera lock. The arm I made above is basically a rotating plane (with a 3 degree of freedom head), which means that it can reach any point in the X-Y coordinate (if it's in reach of course), and then you rotate your plan around X, allowing you to go 3D.

It's not very instinctive but that's how robotics arms tends to work anyway (or they'll have some blind positions out of which they can't move, it's funny went it happens, the arm can't decide if it must go up or down, math saying it that both are valid options, it just stay stuck weirdly in its position and you'll have to move it by hand). The main issue with stock robotic arms is the wobliness of the structures (and the weight balance) which makes it hellish to move anything at more than few centimeters per seconds. At which point it's faster to dock, or claw your way through whatever you wanna do.

And I do not know if it's very realistic, but besides the canadarm and, I think, one arm on the ISS, robotic arms aren't really used in space. It seems easier to slowly propel stuff in zero-G than trying to grab them.