Mechatronics Design and Kinematic Simulation of 5 DOF Serial Robot Manipulator for Soldering THT Electronic Components in Printed Circuit Boards

Abstract

Universities must have properly implemented and qualified laboratories for the comprehensive training of students. There are laboratories with laser cutters and 3D printers but very few with a robotic system that can be used by students. For this reason, the innovative research was carried out in 2021 under the supervision of the School of Mechatronics Engineering at Ricardo Palma University, it was creating a robotic system that allows soldering THT electronic components on printed circuit boards, to help students to perform this process. The robotic system will be able to adapt to different sizes of circuit boards in a specified workspace, defined by $23 \text{cm}\times 17\ \text{cm}$, and reach the farthest points of the circuit boards due to the 5 degrees of freedom that compose it. This study presents mechatronics conceptual design and kinematic analysis simulation of the structure, which is a set of a translation joint with reference to the cartesian robot movement and rotation joints that compose a manipulator. In addition, the end effector will be a soldering iron beside a pipe for the tin output which will be connected to a pair of gears controlled by a stepper motor to dispense the filler material. The robot is pretended to be applied to laboratories of Ricardo Palma University. In conclusion, favorable results were achieved; consequently, the next step of the project is to apply a camera for the solder path recognition and expand its use for SMD electronic components.