dobot_magician_utilities

Utility programs for the dobot magician robotic arm, written in python. Useful for setting up experiments

Contents

• Introduction
• Installation
• Guidance on use

Introduction

This code toolbox provides scripts to:

1. Setup experiments on the dobot magician arm including
   1. Homing the robot arm
   2. Collecting robot poses using the button on the robot arm
   3. Displaying alarms
   4. Clearing alarms

Installation

This code is bundelled as a python package. A setup file is included and so dependent libraries should install with the package. Please note some are ommitted on purpose because they are not available using pip.

To install the package on Windows, OS X or Linux, clone the repository and use the 'pip install' command inside the repository root directory.

It is suggested to do this in a virtual environment by:

(1) create a virtual environment (e.g. using venv or conda). (2) open a terminal window with the virtual environment activated (3) navigate the the local directory of dobot_tactile_toolbox setup.py using the 'cd' command (2) Then run the following command

python install .

Installation (part 2) of .dll for use with dobot magician arm:

For both windows and linux you should not need to do anything with the dll. This is packaged with cri_dobot which is a prequisite. If you get an error message relating to the dll library (or are using mac) try the steps below. Please reach out for help if this isn't working!

To use the dobot dll (which is a prerequisite) follow these instructions

• [A] use the correct DLL from dobot (64 bit or 32 bit), and
• [B] put the dll in either
  • \cri_dobot\dobotMagician\dll_files
  • or the system root directory, for example on windows this is (%SystemRoot%\system32)

You can find the dll at (https://www.dobot.cc/downloadcenter/dobot-magician.html) - Look for Development Protocol -> 'DobotDemovX.X.zip' - Ensure you extract the correct DLL for your system (windows/linux/mac) (x64/x32)

Installation (part 3)

Scripts in this package use the cri, and cri_dobot and libraries. You must have all these python packages installed (e.g. in your venv). You can find them here:

• https://github.com/jlloyd237/cri
• https://github.com/meisben/cri_dobot

Usage

• For examples of basic usage and to test the python package is working run 'utilities\utilities.py'
• To move the arm to a new position see the script 'utilities\move_to_pose.py'

Bug list

(1) TCP

Dobot magician has a Tool Center Point (TCP) bug which means that it always assumed it's tool center point values (x,y,z) are 0,0,0. For this reason the tool center point is not currently used with the dobot magician in production code. It is yet to be determined whether this functionality will be replicated in future versions of the cri_dobot wrapper. A question has been opened on this topic in the dobot magician forums.