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Topic starter
2022-04-05 10:54 pm
Hi, everyone!
I got into 3d printing and electronics when the world experienced some unexpected free-time at home... I joined Mr. Baddeley's Printed Droid a couple of years ago and have built a bunch of smaller arduino, RC and bluetooth controlled droids following his and others' instructions which taught me a lot!
My first project deviating from the instructions incorporated a nerf gun mounted on an RC droid. The firing mechanism was controlled by an arduino nano connected to the flysky receiver.
Next, I designed a droid in Fusion 360 borrowing heavily from Michael Baddeley's drive system and electronics setup. This was also my first time writing build instructions and sharing everything I made with our group.
Now I'm trying to make a modular drive platform that multiple droids or other models can easily attach to using an esp32 Dev board and mecanum wheels controlled with ibus through a flysky receiver. I'm hoping others will be able to use this if they're just getting into 3d design and want to make their own model, or if they want to experiment with different control options like ble or wifi, or be able to build one electronic setup and have the option to print various shells for it, etc. To keep costs down, I'd like to use four tt gear motors and two xm1508 motor drivers.
I'm not sure if what I want to do is possible the way I'm hoping it will be, but I know I'm in over my head (as usual). I'm here to learn from others and hopefully get better at this coding thing!
ron bentley and Valerio reacted
2022-04-06 12:09 am
Welcome to the forum. You'll find other robotophiles here and lots of other people too to help with any problems you have along the way 🙂
Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're talking about.
2022-04-06 5:59 am
Welcome to the forum.
Your idea for a "standard platform" for robots seems quite interesting.
I have a few questions:
-Will the droids you put on the base be designed with their own microcontroller (like DB1)
or will the ESP32 act as a single microcontroller for the whole robot?
-Do you plan to use encoders to correct the base's movement?
I remember my IR car always steering a bit when it was supposed to go straight.
This was probably because the motors weren't all fastened to the same level, but that is difficult to maintain over time.
-Do you plan to put sensors on the base? If so, which ones?
I hope you enjoy the time you spend here on the forums.
Have a nice day
ron bentley reacted
2022-04-06 4:55 pm
Hi Im_Ryno,
A warm welcome to you. You will find the forum a great source of expertise and people who have an interest in your projects, it looks like you are off to a good start!
Ron B
Ron Bentley
Creativity is an input to innovation and change is the output from innovation. Braden Kelley
A computer is a machine for constructing mappings from input to output. Michael Kirby
Through great input you get great output. RZA
Gauss is great but Euler rocks!!
Topic starter
2022-04-07 1:03 am
@valerio Thank you for your welcome!
I was originally trying to make a toy for my daughter - she wanted an RC car to drive her Star Wars action figures around in. So I drew up a speeder transport thingy in Fusion. From that, I thought being able to put multiple tops or shells on whatever powered it would make my life easier than needing to figure out that whole setup again for the next project. That snowballed into the concept of a potential learning tool.
Any robots/ droids that I'd make would probably be pretty dumb. All show and no go? Basically just models that attach to the common base. So really any components - esp32, motors, batteries, drivers, receivers, whatever - would be contained in the base. Even with that though, I hope for the potential of more complex builds off the same platform.
Encoders were not on my mind. I wanted to use those cheap yellow hobby motors (because I already had a bunch) but now that you mention that, I'm scared that may be what's needed to make the mecanum wheels work and I need to go back to the drawing board all together...
As for sensors, not in my immediate plans. My idea right now is to build a car controlled with RC. If my caveman brain can smash that round peg into a square hole, I'm happy! But also, it would be cool if others could build off of the idea and make much cooler things.
Valerio reacted