Subject:
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Linux Works well with the handyboard! and Cool Platform Hack!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics.handyboard
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Date:
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Sat, 2 Sep 2000 05:37:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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1097 times
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Hi,
I got all the bugs out of my handyboard! First I had to bend
several leafs
on my 68HC11 (Thanks Fred!), Socket was ok, the processor was not.
Also, when I did a burn in of my board, I did a complete trickle
charge on
the battery pack, ran testmotors(); to burn in the board. The board
ran for
1.5 hours and then the batt light lit. Is that what everyone else is
getting?
I may switch over to a 9.6v camcorder battery rated at 4.5Amps, but I
will
need to modify the charger ciruitry from NiCad to Lead Acid. The handy
brick
will be a little heavier.. I don't know.. possibly I'll just add an
additional NiCad
pack in parallel to get more play time.
Linux is an excellent developmnet platform for the Handyboard. I
decided to
pay for the latest and greatest version of IC for Linux and it was worth
it.
Now.. I was going to keep this quite until after the Firefighting robot
contest
but heck this hack was way too cool. At Toy Works I found a 9" x 6" x
4"
toy model of the Mars Rover! Not Radio control, just a wire control and
only
foorward and back. The model was cool enough that I had to bring it
home
to see if I can hack it for use with my handyboard. So.. I removed the
bottom
cover, and found a 3v Mabuchi motor connected to a small gearbox that
drove
all six wheels on the rover. I removed the transmission and motor. Cut
away
near the first gear after the rear wheel and made room for two lego
motors to be
mounted underneath the rover near the first gear near the rear wheel.
The two legos are glued together back to back, I used hot glue to glue
the motors
into the notch I cut out near the first set of gears. I used two 8
tooth gears and
these transfer energy to a 50 tooth gear which drives the wheels with
100 tooth gears
the wheels have the 50 tooth gears in between them. This baby has torqe
too spare!
The trick was getting the motors mounted properly. The tests were skid
turning.
My first attempt there was a slight problem with turning to the left,
the gears would
skip, no problem, I just removed the hot glue, made the notches deeper
mounted the
motors again with hotglue this time pressing hard enogh to lock the
drive gears into
the 50 tooth gear tightly. This baby does not skip now!!! This
turns on a dime,
I am designing my own IRPD detector tonight, the board will have a
crystal controlled
clock. If you are looking for a cool platform to build on, and want
something a little
different, and you are not afraid of using a dremel tool or a utility
knide (be carefull
you can loose a finger, and stay away from the circular saw blade for
the dremel!)
The radical modifications that are about to take place to this platform
won't be
mentioned until after the firebot contest. The only recognizeable
feature
is goung to be the 6 wheel drive.
This climbs well, and the best part is.. I didn't shell out $109.00 for
a platform.
This rover that's really cool looking cost me $5.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
marked down from
$25.00, the lego motors cost me $20.00 for two! Toys R Us had a special
on
legos with 1 motor each.. usually $29.00 per kit, I got this for $9.99 a
kit!
So that's cheaper than just buying motors! Now time to build the
encoder,
I am not mentioning how I am going to do that, I'd like to see what
others are going to
come up with at the Firebot contest.
One last thing.. building up the Handyboard most of the parts I had! I
just didn't
have a 68HC11 since I've been an 8051 family user for a while, and the
Sharp decoder,
but I managed to get it as a sample! Cool!
Anyway, just thought I'd let you know that you can build a cool base for
cheap!
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