As you can see from these two images I have made great strides in building the mobile base.
Today I:
- Mounted the two lower decks where the casters mount
- Mounted the casters
- Machined some standoffs from acrylic rod (see the second image)
- Attached the motor mount assemblies with angle brackets (very stiff and perpendicular)
- Made a mount for the sonar (using 3mm PVC)
- Redid the sonar cabling (using 22ga stranded versus the solid, and following my wiring standard layout)
- Mounted the sonar
From the front:
Note: the front lower deck will also be the mount point for the line following sensors. You can see two of the angle brackets I'm using to shore up the motor mounts. At this time the bot weighs just over 2 pounds ... largely due tot he motors and encoders.
From the rear:
Note: I used the acrylic rod because I have 20 feet of it that a friend gave to me. I am considering lighting it with LEDs … but that's for a later time. This deck with also hold the Lipo pack.
To do:
It might help if I actually kept up with my todo lists but I use them as a brainstorm tool and right now my mind is racing with ideas.
- Resolder the motor controller circuit
- Rewire the encoders with longer leads using my wiring standard (which is to say the same as a servo lead) | GND | 5V | SIG1 | SIG2 …
- Get this bot mobile with some simple code to count encoder pulses and drive a square
- Add in PID to start using waypoints and let the "algorithm" decide how to get from A to B
Onwards,
Jay
