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Subject: 
Re: What are you making?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.build
Date: 
Sat, 7 Nov 1998 17:20:28 GMT
Viewed: 
2202 times
  
I don't really know if this belongs in robotics also, but it is fairly
non-technical, so I'm posting it here.  This description involves parts included
in the Mindstorms RIS.  For anyone who doesn't understand what I'm talking
about, go get a Mindstorms set!  It is too cool :-)

Watch the Pallas Spaceworks Homepage for a new line of "intelligent" models
using the RCX brick :-)

I just built a fairly compact little Bi-polar Limiting Switch.  Basically, my
challenge was to map two opposite discrete actions to one sensor/motor pair.
For example: My first application is going to be a model with motorized
retraction/extension of landing gear.  The actions are opposite, but I want them
on the same switch (to keep two other sensor ports open for other actions).
Software-only solutions aren't feasable, because the RCX will lose it's state
memory (is the gear up or down?) when you turn it off, and the next time you try
to cycle the gear, they might go the wrong way and tear the model apart.

What I did was combine 1 touch sensor with a polarity switch, such that any time
the polarity switch is set to an extreme (+ or -), it triggers a "touch pushed"
event which activates the motor for x seconds.  The motor power is passed
through the P-switch, so the motor direction will be reversed depending on the
position of the switch.

I'm going to model the assembly in LDraw and post it on my page.  I'll post the
URL back here when I'm done in case anyone is interested.



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