Robot Prototype 2 chassis

The previous robot prototype chassis did not work very well on high friction surfaces (carpets, grass etc.). Thus prototype 2 was born.

The problems were caused by 2 things as far as I can tell, trying to skid all 4 wheels and also having 4 motors that did not have enough torque. This lead to Prototype 1 stalling frequently when rotating.

Continue reading Robot Prototype 2 chassis

Using windscreen wiper motors for a robot

A DC motor is a DC motor…. right? No, it’s not always that simple.

windscreenwiper-motor

Windscreen wiper motors are fairly cheap when bought second hand from a scrap yard (where I got mine from) and give very good torque for larger robotics projects. You’ve just got to be aware of a couple of things before getting started.

Continue reading Using windscreen wiper motors for a robot

Robot Prototype 1 chassis complete

I’m building a robot which will have sonar and IR ranging units for navigation and 2 cameras on-board allowing for stereoscopic vision. Here is my first go at putting together a prototype wheeled robot chassis.

 

robot-p1-top-view
As  you can probably see here it will be controlled by an Arduiono at the very lowest level. Controlling the Arduino will be an embedded Linux system, e.g. a raspberry pi or banana pi, having a radio / wirless link for accessing the Linux system.

 

robot-p1-bottom-view

I’ll post the results of how it drove on various surfaces.


robot-p1-top-view2

Here’s one with the cameras on-board and the old wheels which i replaced with the above omni-wheels.

 

 

robot-p1-front-view

 

Edit: The robot is having difficulty turning on very thick fluffy carpet. It looks like more power is required. I am currently working on a prototype 2 chassis that I will post here.