Anatomy

The LabVolt 5100 has 6 degree’s of freedom, each controlled by a stepper motor.

BASE

The base of the arm has a DB9 connector for input signals. There is a 2 pin connector for 13.8 volts DC, which is required for powering the electronics and stepper motors. The right side pin of the jack is the positive, left side is negative.

 

MOTORS

The stepper motors are 6 wire bi-polar but the center tap wires are tied together to make a 5 wire uni-polar. Specs are as follows: 12 volt per phase, 0.4 amps per phase, 30Ω per phase, 1,8 degrees per step, 200 steps per revolution. The model number is identified as 57BYG180-02A but we found a motor with the same specs online with the model number JK57HY41-0406. A photo of the motor label is below. This label is only on the base motor inside the base. You have to remove the bottom panel to see it. Our label fell off the motor without any effort.

 

Power Supply

No power supply came with the robot arm. The power connector states that the unit requires 13.8vdc. We didn’t have anything that voltage so we used an ATX power supply, which put out 12 volts. It seemed to work fine. Also, the motors are rated at 12 volts.

The motors are 0.4 amps per phase. So, 0.4A × 2 phases per motor × 6 motors = 4.8 amps total. We hooked up an ammeter and measured that the entire current draw of the robotic arm (at 12v, not 13.8) and it came out to be right at 4 amps. Keep in mind this is just for the arm itself and does not include any of the optional peripherals.

 

Control Board

Here’s a reverse engineered schematic of the control board courtesy of http://www.dankohn.info/projects/armdroid.html