Articulating Arm to Hold Fiberscope?

Look at Bogen Magic Arm, manufactured by Manfrotto. They're the greatest.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

I was hoping for something with a heavy base and very long extending arm with multiple joints. Something similar to what you see on a fully articulating optical microscope would be ideal, but with a mechanical "hand" at the end for gripping.

I thought you said you could position it with your own arm? The Bogen is about the same size as yours, and has the same number of joints. I use mine attached to an optical table to hold a heavy infrared camera--it's very good for what I need, anyway. It has a 1/4-20 thread on each end, so you can bolt it to whatever you like. Plus it's only $100 or so.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

It's a question of reach. The "arm" needs to reach out maybe two to three feet and then be arranged into unusual angles, depending on the card being inspected.

The "hand" mechanism on the device you mentioned looks adequate, but the arm part looks too short, and not really counterbalanced sufficiently.

It isn't counterbalanced at all. You position it where you want it, and then turn the handle at the elbow, which locks all the joints in position. It's slick as can be, but you obviously know your requirement better than I do. If you find something you like, please post a link.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

And that is exactly the point: I'm testing cards in fixtures, and the artificial "hand" needs to hang in the air many feet above the floor. There is no table surface anywhere in the vicinity of the test point on the card.

What I need is something like a robot arm used in manufacturing without the robot. :)

Is the fixture near a magnetic surface? Is the "many feet above the floor" still accesible from the floor? It could be there's still a clean way to make the arm work if you allow the "shoulder" to be attached in some way besides a simple desk-top clamp. Umbrella stands are available for the arm. A standard tripod may work as well for stability at greater heights. An articulated arm with multiple joins and counterweights for many feet of traversal seems like an awfully "tall" order.

- John_H

The fixture is just a 72 inch high 19 inch computer rack, with large telecom assemblies rack mounted to it. There are maybe three of these racks side by side, and a given card under test could be on the top or bottom half of any of those racks.

The ideal fixture would be a rackmounted arm, somewhere in the middle of the three racks, that imitates a human arm, with swivel ball joints at "shoulder" "elbow" and "wrist" locations. Something like the Bogen Magic arm for the "hand" part of the assembly might work fine.

The basic workflow would be to orient the hand at the right angle, and position, then to push it into the fixture and let it stabilize its position so you could then view the fiber on an LCD without a lot of "jitter" that might occur from a human holding the probe in place.

Me - I'd go magnetic. It'd me nice to have everything completely integrated, but the fiber scope has to be on an umbilical anyway. You wouldn't even need the full arm if you have complete control over the vertical position of a magnetic "shelf" that moves with the fiber scope. Just return the shelf and scop to the "home" position in the racks when it's not being used.

- John_H