Tyler62,

That is a pretty broad question to ask.  There are many manufacturers of components to put your own system together.  A couple I've used in the past are PHD, Tol-o-matic, and Gimatic.  They can be found at the following websites:

www.phdinc.com
www.tolomatic.com
www.gimatic.com

If you can give us an ideal of your application, it might be easier to give better direction.

Rich.....

Richard Nornhold, PE
nornrich@redrose.net

Thanks nornrich,

I didnt want to get into the nitty gritties but the application i want to do requires an arm to move an object from one location to another.  I want it to be able to rotate at the base,  i want the arm to raise and lower, and i want the claw to open and retract.  It will be lifting light objects and i want to make it approx 18 inches.  With regards to powering up i would prefer to use small servo motors and possible gears if not belt driven.  I hope this explains it better.  Any further help would be greatly appreciated!!

    Are you sure you want to build this arm, it would be faster and probably a little cheaper to buy one off the shelf. See Robohand for grippers. Also www.animatics.com for servos, they have the Smartmotor. You may want to look at Tolomatic for stepper and servo controllers, drives, and motors. I would just buy an AIA actuator for speed and ease reasons. Hope this helps.