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DROMOMAN - modular arm parts for Infernal Robotics


nothke

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An excellent "companion mod" for this arm, I have found, is the Attachment Pack's docking strut. There's a ton of great stuff you can do with the attachment pack in general, but for my purposes I wanted to build a folding crane that I could send to another planet and use for hoisting very heavy objects. So what I did was I put docking strut connectors on the base of my crane and on the winch that was the "hand" of my crane, and then once I had the crane unfolded into the correct position I engaged the docking struts to lock everything very firmly in place. Just remember to disengage the docking struts later before moving any of the arm's joints or bad things will ensue.

Here's an example of my testbed using a Dromoman arm and a KAS winch to lift a 25 ton weight completely off the ground in Kerbin gravity: 9wburIJ.jpg

The "hand" of this arm consists of a clamp-o-tron Jr., since the Attachment Pack allows Kerbals on EVA to attach those to ships in the field I figured that'd be a good basic interface. Currently attached is a winch with a clamp-o-tron Jr. base - as you can see, the weight of the rover it's hoisting has pulled the two CoTJrs apart somewhat. The arm is supported by three docking struts that I engaged once the arm was in position over the target rover, as well as a couple of struts I engaged to brace the shoulder and elbow joints (I suspect these aren't really necessary if there's enough struts bracing the "hand" directly). I also added a grapple hook winch on the belly of my test crane that I fired into the ground before I lifted the target, to keep from flipping over. The target weight is considerably heavier than the crane itself is.

I should probably have more than just these three docking struts holding the "hand" up, 25 tons is causing some amount of jiggling and bending even with those. But without those docking struts this arm fails utterly.

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Removed the ChrisPhilips link since it violates forumrules regarding source and licensing, I suggest you point people towards Sirkuts fork until we get DR 2.0 up. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/37707-Magic-Smoke-Industries-Parts

I added a link to this thread in the original DR thread.

Edited by DYJ
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Removed the ChrisPhilips link since it violates forumrules regarding source and licensing, I suggest you point people towards Sirkuts fork until we get DR 2.0 up. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/37707-Magic-Smoke-Industries-Parts

I added a link to this thread in the original DR thread.

Great news that you guys will be updating DR.

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So I shouldn't use this mod for my space station? because when it updates my space station is ruined?

Just add it to your station by docking it on then undock and backup your save folder before you update if it is auto-removed then you just send up a new one. If everything is fine just redock. This is good practice for all experimental mod parts.

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Just add it to your station by docking it on then undock and backup your save folder before you update if it is auto-removed then you just send up a new one. If everything is fine just redock. This is good practice for all experimental mod parts.

Yeah, theoretically this would work, except in practice there are problems with docking/undocking the root of the arm. Sometimes it just stops working. Maybe a good way to overcome this is to put a probe as the arm root so if you undock it, the hierarchy would remain from the probe.. Haven't tested that though, it's just a thought.

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In the images in the first post, there's a PMA adapter (the angled docking port adapter) that looks like a clone of the hardware on the ISS, but it doesn't look like the one from the ISS pack elsewhere on this forum. Anyone know who it's from? I'm specifically referring to the one shown in this image: http://i.imgur.com/li11OyG.jpg connecting into the B9 cargo bay.

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  • 2 weeks later...
In the images in the first post, there's a PMA adapter (the angled docking port adapter) that looks like a clone of the hardware on the ISS, but it doesn't look like the one from the ISS pack elsewhere on this forum. Anyone know who it's from? I'm specifically referring to the one shown in this image: http://i.imgur.com/li11OyG.jpg connecting into the B9 cargo bay.

The octagonal adapter was made by me. If I find some time I will publish a pack of pma-like octagonal offset parts

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i tried and dromoman works but not normal damned robotics

Edit: i also tried using infernal robotics but it did not help

Ill take a look to see if its a plugin issue with IR when I get back to a computer.

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i tried and dromoman works but not normal damned robotics

Edit: i also tried using infernal robotics but it did not help

Dromoman works with Infernal Robotics without any issues. I'm not sure what you may be experiencing.

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actually i should mention but i manage to get it to work because apparently after i got rid of the lazor docking cam it worked even with infernal robotics

There is a new version of Romfarers Lazor mods out which might fix that

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For some reason, i can't place hublet, radial and linear rotohub on node, even on part clipping. I run on ksp 0.21.1, otherwise damned robotics (version from github for 0.20.2) and this mod works.

Also, some small parts are unplacable (not rockomax micronode,...) on nodes from this mod.

Edited by trvtannenberg
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First off Great mod. However does anyone know why when you load up the arms are in slightly different places then when you originally placed and is this something that can be fixed or is that just the nature of the beast.

I've noticed that too on occasion. It appears to me that the arms are loading in the odd positions because when you left them to go do something else they were straining under a load. When you return the under load piece assumes it's strained position when you left, but the piece it is connected to assumes it's normal position and the resulting joint is bent.

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These work great! You scaled the part size perfectly... the enormous size of the Damned Robotics parts made them hard to use unless you were using them on really large craft.

With an elbow-hinge, a flat hinge and an extending cylinder, this set would be about perfect.

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The arm worked better than expected. I expected massive wobbles and glitches since that tends to happen when you stack robotic parts in games like these, but it held up quite well, even with the violent nature of the electromagnet (it wobbled on connection but didn't break). It completed my Space Shuttle build! The only problem was that it clipped through the bottom of the cargo bay when I landed pretty hard and exploded into the ground. Not sure if theres any way around that other than quantum struts..

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The arm worked better than expected. I expected massive wobbles and glitches since that tends to happen when you stack robotic parts in games like these, but it held up quite well, even with the violent nature of the electromagnet (it wobbled on connection but didn't break). It completed my Space Shuttle build! The only problem was that it clipped through the bottom of the cargo bay when I landed pretty hard and exploded into the ground. Not sure if theres any way around that other than quantum struts..<snipped video>

Very nice piloting while putting the station part in place. I'm totally going to replicate that shuttle. Any tips on construction or flying?

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