SCARAmouche: A 3D-Printed Low-Cost SCARA Robot

Robotics for manipulation has become essential in factory automation but has not yet been generalized in non-industrial settings. The Smile.Tech’s Robótica Platform provides an assortment of robotic joints and controllers for the construction of different robot architectures with up to a 2 kg payload. This paper describes the development and testing of the SCARAmouche, a SCARA robot with most of its components 3D-printed. The robot was designed and engineered using Fusion360, and its load-bearing capacity was investigated through mechanical stress–strain analysis using finite element modeling. The 3D-printed components were manufactured with custom-built 3D printers operating at high temperatures and ABS polymer feedstock, using fused deposition modeling. The assembled robot was then tested and its repetition accuracy with different loads was investigated, referring to a low-cost 3D measuring device consisting of a fixture holding three digital indicators (plunger style), assembled with their axes orthogonal to each other and intersecting at one point. The newly developed SCARAmouche robot demonstrates the flexibility and capabilities of the Smile.Tech's robotic joint and controller technologies for the design and construction of accurate, reliable, highly performing, cost-effective, and safe SCARA robots, that can be used both for industrial and non-industrial handling applications and various operating scenarios.