DROMOMAN - modular arm parts for Infernal Robotics

[nothke]

This mod is no longer actively developed by me. Although, theoretically, there is a minuscule chance I could come back to it. Also, go down to see the license info.

All credits for original Damned Robotics go to r4mon (that's the man), and to Sirkut for updating Infernal Robotics

I present you:

DROMOMAN

Damned Robotics MOdular MANipulator

("Damned" is obviously here a legacy name)

After wondering about ways to save RCS fuel on modular space stations, our Kerbal engineers from the north came up with a simple modular system to accommodate all the super-dexterity needs. They use just a few basic parts that are powerful when combined.

Primary parts:

DROMOMAN hublet

This purely structural hub is perfect for connecting robotic limbs in all axis, and it lets you connect other parts like lights, winches, guidance cameras, pallets, docking ports.. just about anything you need. The hub was actually created out of lack for attachment points on the limbs themselves.

DROMOMAN rotact

This all purpose rotary actuator can rotate indefinitely around it's axis, similarly to the good old Rotatron, it comes in an octogonal compact housing and has almost enough power to power a hairdryer. It's slow, but can carry immense loads (IN ORBIT!)

DROMOMAN limbs

They come in 0.75, 2 and 3 meter lengths and are the primary structural elements of the DROMOMAN.

Hybrid parts:

DROMOMAN Linear and Radial Rotohubs

This Rotact-Hublet hybrid offers 1 axis but has 6 attachment point joint making it a 360 pitch, yaw or roll actuator IN ONE PART. It comes in two versions, one that attaches linearly to the root and the other that attaches radially.

Possibilies? ..

..unlimited

NOTES / KNOWN ISSUES:

(in KSP 0.20, although most of the issues still apply)

• There is no latching end effector currently, and I recommend you to use the KAS winch as the end effector instead of standard docking ports, which are susceptible to quickload-not-functioning, or undocking-but-nothing-happens problems. Plus using KAS will make sure your payload doesn't escape if something goes wrong.
  
• "walking arms" like the CANADARM 2 are difficult to make because the root detachment causes arm to stop functioning. Quicksave-quickload regains control, but the joints tend to change position. So.. try to avoid detaching the root.
  
• Do not save/quicksave when the arms are under tension, especially under gravity when a heavy objects is attached at the end. This will offset the parts a bit, and the next time you load you will notice the offset.
  
• All parts are susceptible to the all famous "wobble" and I have so far not found an effective "plugin" solution to the problem. To make sure you never encounter wobble, especially when moving heavy cargo, make sure to set motor speed to as low as possible!!! That is also the reason why robotic arms on the ISS move so slowly.
  
• ^^ When moving very heavy cargo, don't hold the button pressed but do it click-by-click cause you will lose your nerves from the wobble. If you are patient, you will love the possibilities of the arm!
  
• The arm parts are quite light, so don't be fooled by thinking "wow the arm doesn't have any wobble" but wait and see until you actually attach some payload to it.
  
• The radial rotohub looks ridiculous in VAB (it's pouring out of the selection box), I hope I solve that in the future, it is probably caused by the absence of the collider on the movable part of the arm.
  
• Putting arms under a lot of weight (in 1g), or forcing pushing them into other objects won't brake the arm, but they will appear disconnected and eventually physics will get so intense that you may destroy something on your ship.. So be careful. If you see that arm doesn't seemingly work, and 2 arm parts look disconnected pull it back cause you are putting it under tension.
  
• Note that the arm doesn't collide with itself or ship that controls it, this is completely normal, although unrealistic.
  
• If you are using the KAS winch as an end effector: Be careful when handling objects/payload that is docked to your arm or with KAS and pay attention if they are "docked" or "undocked". If it is "docked" all your parts are belong to the ship you are controlling, therefore there are no collisions. Switching the mode to "undocked" while the latched payload is intersecting your ship will make a lot of mess. Make sure you don't intersect your ship while doing undocking - docking business.
  
• make as little quickloads as possible when using the arm. Especially avoid quicksaving while the docking magnet is turned on, it will make your docking port nonfunctional after quickload (there is a way out of this though).
  
• cost is not balanced
  
• collisions are currently handled by the mesh colliders. I didn't encounter performance problems so far as a result of that, but it might be possible you have (if you use like 1000 parts).
  

Requirements:

THIS MOD REQUIRES Magic Smoke Industries Infernal Robotics, you can get it here:, you can get it here:

Magic Smoke Industries' - Infernal Robotics

however, for earlier, pre 0.20 versions you can use Damned Robotics:

original forum page: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/9675-v0-19-Damned-Robotics-Version-1-3

Download:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4qihyg02givw5vh/DROMOMAN_build3.7z?dl=0

Examples:

Ridiculosly long arm packed into considerably smaller "package", and another "WALKING ARM", with double end effectors.

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

- You are permitted to use, copy, redistribute contents of this mod as-is

- You may remix your own derivatives of the mod, models or textures, and release them under your own name

- You must credit Nothke, when publishing your derivatives.

- Note that this mod does NOT contain, and the licence does NOT cover requirement plugins (be it Damned Robotics or Infernal Robotics)

Changelog:

build 3
    * corrected configs to work with Magic Smoke Industries Infernal Robotics - 0.19.3 (in KSP 0.9 32bit)
    * attached a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence

build 2:
    * Corrected linear rotohub axis 
    * Corrected base-static mesh for linear rotohub 

build 1:

    * Initial release

Edited April 13, 2015 by nothke
links removed pending license

[nothke]

reseeeerved

[jamieadd]

Cool, Modular looks like a great idea for robotic arms.

[Mechrior]

can not wait to be faffing around with this

[betaking]

noice!... (if only I used dammned robotics)

[sirkut]

Great job man. Can't wait to check it out.

[nothke]

Uploaded! (to mediafire)

[Greys]

Regarding the wobble:

As it has been explained to me the wobble of a joint between two parts is defined by the difference in mass of the two parts, so a really light thing attached to a really heavy thing, between the two there will be considerable wobble.

The vanilla solution to this to make the light part heavier.

The solution promised to us by .20.x (not really, to my knowledge the change was not announced until .20.2) is gameObject based attach nodes, which offer a variety of different joint types.

You can read about that here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/34013-0-20-PartTools-GameDatabase-and-new-features

But, it's kinda borked, which you can read about here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/34555-Anyone-got-the-new-0-20-attachment-nodes-working-yet

TL;DR for that, The bits you want are ignored because of a bug in the code; but by the sound of it a plugin can enforce them 'manually'

note: because it's bugged not many people have gotten a chance to actually try these alternate modes to see what they do, but "merged-physics" and "no-physics" sound promising

Edited June 25, 2013 by Greys

[KhaosCorp]

This looks awesome!!! Much better idea than pre-built arms. Would be better without the weak joints dr seems to create now (im still lamenting the loss of my super crane). Even with the wobbles this is gonna be super useful!!

Thanks bud, ksp needed this.

[Lindy]

Thank you, just the sort of thing I've been looking for!

[jamieadd]

Bug:

In my game the linear rotohub is moving the wrong way. Instead of rotating, its bending.

All the other parts seem good to me. Good work.

[nothke]

Bug:

In my game the linear rotohub is moving the wrong way. Instead of rotating, its bending.

All the other parts seem good to me. Good work.

Ah yes, I've ommited testing it.

Fixed it =) Build 2 is up!

Edited June 25, 2013 by nothke

[Tex_NL]

This looks interesting. The only reason I use the CanadArm and Buran arm is for the lack of anything better (and the extreme wobble in DR arms). A modular arm pack like this would be awesome.

And I'd like to make a small request while we're at it: a magnetic clamp. In your pics you're using KAS but that should be optional. I'd like to see a modular part similar to the magnetic KAS grappler but without the winch.

[nothke]

And I'd like to make a small request while we're at it: a magnetic clamp. In your pics you're using KAS but that should be optional. I'd like to see a modular part similar to the magnetic KAS grappler but without the winch.

Yes, my idea is to make an end effector similar to a standard docking port, but with a magnet that can turn on and off, so you can latch only when you are sure you are in the latching position (similar to the real LEE). The only nuisance with KAS currently is that you need a Kerbal to plug the connector. I will probably use a KAS-like port for mounting, but perhaps if popular demand is higher, I'll make a connect-to-anything magnetic grappler =)

Edited June 25, 2013 by nothke

[Mekan1k]

Demand is here for that sort of thing, believe me!

[nothke]

Spaceport page online:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/dromoman/

[Krisism]

@nothke, I know winrar is easy to get - just thought I'd put a request out for a .zip version as well. (Personally I use them, but I think there are quite a few people who also prefer.) Going to try it out asap! Already have a design for 'the hummingbird' with your parts

(Awesome, thanks for link sorry I missed that!)

Edited June 25, 2013 by Krisism
Edit vs. new post

[nothke]

@nothke, I know winrar is easy to get - just thought I'd put a request out for a .zip version as well. (Personally I use them, but I think there are quite a few people who also prefer.) Going to try it out asap! Already have a design for 'the hummingbird' with your parts

You can get the .zip from Kerbal Spaceport now

[deadshot462]

Awesome, downloading right away.

[Read have Read]

Cool stuff. My only complaint is that they seem to turn a little slowly. Can't wait for more of these things!

[erbmur]

Cool stuff. My only complaint is that they seem to turn a little slowly. Can't wait for more of these things!

If you want to change the speed of the rotation, then open up the cfg file and towards the bottom of the file modify the line:

keyRotateSpeed = 5.0

I have set mine to 10 and things seem a little less slugish

[erbmur]

With the action groups present on the parts, would it be possible to add the option to rotate +90/+180 in one click?

[nothke]

With the action groups present on the parts, would it be possible to add the option to rotate +90/+180 in one click?

I don't write the plugin so I don't know. I wish someone would upgrade the plugin, it needs some work and a few new features I have in mind

Edited June 26, 2013 by nothke

[ashrutoraman]

hinges pls

[sirkut]

I don't write the plugin so I don't know. I wish someone would upgrade the plugin, it needs some work and a few new features I have in mind

I've created a fork called Infernal Robotics and I've already added a new feature that locks the movement. It can be found at the magic smoke industries thread. I will see about the rotation option. Pm me your other ideas.