Re: [mowbot] mowbot brains

adamdb nospam at juno.com
Mon, 10 May 1999 10:05:23 -0500

Craig,
Where did you get your gear motors? Specs? RPM? Torque? I ask mostly
for future reference as I recently ordered parts for my mowbot from
www.meci.com. If I haven't mentioned them on this list before (so many
lists, so little time), I would highly recommend everyone check them out.
They are a surplus dealer and have everything from Batteries to Wire. I
recently ordered the following:

(3) 12vdc, 6000rpm motors. ($4 a piece)
(2) Gearboxes from a childs sidewalk car. (<$2 a piece)
(2) 5 inch wheels (<$2) a piece
(15) power transisitors (don't remember exact specs, $0.20 each) for
making my own H-bridge.
Plus a couple of other misc items. Total price for basically all the
parts I will need to buy: <$25!! Everything else I have on hand or can
fabricate myself.

Please keep us posted on your progress with the HandyBoard. I intend to
use a PIC 16C84 for my mowbot brain (as I already have it and all the
necessary development equipment on hand). I also intend to use "C" for
programming the 'C84.

Good luck!
Adam

On Mon, 10 May 1999 07:52:32 -0700 (PDT) Craig Bladow <cbladow nospam at yahoo.com>
writes:
> I constructed my initial mowbot platform from a piece of plastic
> coated
> wire shelving. The leading edge of the shelving is bent at 90
> degrees.
> This is where I attached the two gear motors using hose clamps. A
> large caster in the rear provides the support in the
> rear of the robot.
>
> For 'Brains' I am using a microcontroller based board designed for
> robots called the 'HandyBoard'. This board is based on the Motorola
> 68HC11, has 32k of ram, a two line LCD and 4 (count them 4) H bridge
> motor drivers! One nice thing is that you can program it using
> Interactive C which available via free download or you can purchase
> an
> upgrade. Even better is the extensive documentation to help you
> build
> and program the board. You can purchase finished boards if you
> don't
> want to build them. There are a couple choices for motor driver
> chips.
> I use TI parts that are thermally protected and can drive 1 amp
> motors. This
> works out quite well for the gear motors I am using.
>
> Check out:
> http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/handy-board/index.html
>
> My next step is to eliminate the caster. I went from a 1.5 inch to
> a 4
> inch caster which works fine every where in my yard except when
> climbing a small hump.
> I plan to add two more gearmotors (surplus) to get
> 4 wheel drive.
>
> Craig
>
>
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Adam Bryant (age 0x23)
abryant nospam at peaktech.com (work)
adamdb nospam at juno.com (home)
Parker, CO, USA
Robotics, RC Airplanes, anything using a PIC

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