I am starting a thread here because some of us have purchased or are planning to purchase low-cost robotic arms to incorporate into our automated workflows.
We are not trained roboticists, so please be gentle
Generally, I think it makes sense to have a vial capping/decapping “station”, which clamps the bottom while you use a gripper to unscrew the cap. For the top piece, you can either do what Cooper group did (rotate somewhat, regrip, rotate again), or something with continuous rotation like the DH robotics capper/decapper.
Since most vials are round, it’s hard to think of a purely mechanical approach. Maybe some kind of flexure mechanism to hold tight to the vial when you’ve pushed it in far enough, or the robot pushing a mechanical button that clamps down…
Maybe there could be a gripper attachment that clamps and unscrews “anywhere”, but if you’re already picking up the vial, generally I think a “station” with an electrically activated clamp makes sense.
The main limitations with most low-cost arms is that you usually won’t have force-sensing or very much grip strength or heavy payloads.
@mreish can probably weigh in with a lot more on this since he designed a custom setup for this and integrated it with other tools, including a UR arm.
Likewise, very curious what thoughts people have for other types of tasks that can be automated with a low-cost robotic arm.
