BB8 ROBOT SLIP RING

Custom slip ring solution to different type robot

BB-8 builders have known the importance of keeping as much mass as possible as low down as possible for stability, but it was revealed the great extent to which that has been done in the red carpet version. Motors for the head’s pitch and yaw are located at the bottom and their motion is transferred up to the center using what are maybe best known as bicycle brake cables. Another big reveal was a linear actuator for the body roll, tilting the center stuff with respect to the mass lower down. The actuator itself is located in the lower section. Also, BB-8 builders have been mounting the drive motors for rotating the ball with respect to the axle, in line with the axle.

However, in red carpet BB-8 the motor is also at the bottom and its motion appears to be transferred up to the axle via belt and worm gears. You may mistake the gold cylinders on either side of the central gimbal system to be motors but they’re actually a slip rings.

Slip rings are generally used to transmit electrical signals across a continuously rotating boundary — effectively using small brushes / springs on one side to press against a conductive ring on the other side (thus slip ring).

Regarding what the slip-rings might be doing on the BB-8, look closely at the video of the red carpet BB-8’s internals in the post above and you’ll see that further outward along the shaft, just past the slip rings are something else with wires going to what may be LEDs for projecting lights to various places on the interior of the ball (at least that’s a theory in the BB-8 Builders Group about what’s on the ends of those wires.) So as the guys said, the slip rings are passing the electrical signals (power in this case) from the stationary middle section to the LEDs on the rotating shaft.

JINPAT with 20 years experiences, now has developed a strong R & D team to meet the different type slip rings of different fields.,

Slip rings aren’t used for just electrical purposes. Except the robot slip ring ,they can also transfer analog and digital signals – such as data – meaning they’re now commonly found in applications such as aerodrome beacons, rotating tanks, radio telescopes and power shovels.

Slip rings are available in a number of standard and custom configurations, specifically designed for a given device or the environment they’re operating in. So please tell us your special needs ,our engineers will design a proper solution for you .