Originally published at: This 6-axis robot arm is like the industrial arms pros use at a fraction of the cost | Boing Boing
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They are so powerful they can even photoshop themselves into your family photos… 
This actually looks pretty cool, but I should have been a bit more wary when Stack Social was trying to use the decoy effect by naming the $400,000 price of actual industrial robots. Stack Social loves decoy pricing. But when the decoy price is $400,000 I should have known that the price of the robot they are selling would be pretty steep. Even so, I was expecting a $150 robot arm, not a $1,500 one 
Stil way cooler than the crude manually controlled one from Radio Shack that I used to covet as a kid.
Most people don’t realize it, but here are all the elements needed for a 4 axis robot for under $200.
Print mechanical parts you might need before conversion. By repurposing the filament feeder stepper motor, you can make a gantry robot with a tool head. Use or ditch the temperature elements. It can be programmed using the same plain text G-code the printer normally uses.
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Looking at the parts and build quality, this thing is incredibly overpriced. $150 would be
high. If it were made in the USA it might be more expensive, but seriously, look what you get for $1k from DJI drone; and compare to this: all I see are six steppers a couple of pots and some plastic. for $1500 I call rip-off.
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Agreed way cooler, but also much less expensive.
The Armatron in 1984 was advertised at $31.95 ¹ (2021 inflation adjusted $82.28 ²) about 6% of what this much cooler deal costs today.
Sources: 1.) RadioShack catalog 1984, pages 154-155 archive via RadioShackCatalogs.com . 2.) Inflation adjustment calculation via DollarTimes.com
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I’ve been considering this for a pipetting robot, but the only real pipettor work done on an open platform is for the uArm robotic arm, a $1300 arm.
That actually sounds like an ideal use. Seems like you could even have the filament motor drive disposable syringes to minimize cross contamination.
The first “personal computers” were also ridiculously expensive and not really good for anything
The next 20 or 30 years of consumer robotics may make the world look very different than it does now
I was thinking I’d make an actuator to use the repeating pipettors we already use. Might have clearance issues though.
Here is one for $140. Could not say if it is any good, but maybe more appropriate if you are thinking of getting it for a kid.
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