robots.net blog for blueeyedpop

27 Aug 2003

Wed, 27 Aug 2003 20:28:01 GMT

CANipede works!!!!!

totally fun stuff.

18 Aug 2003

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 21:29:33 GMT

Many long hours on the centipede in the last few days. Got it working on CANBUS. Will post more piccies when they become available.

14 Aug 2003

Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:56:40 GMT

Construction on the centipede is back in progress.

Power harness is 90% done.

Signal loom is strung.

Board connectors 33% done.

Chassis DONE

Motors INSTALLED

Whegs INSTALLED

see http://www.bio-bot.com/movies

15 Apr 2003

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 17:47:46 GMT

Well,

After recently acquiring a bunch of motors from a couple of different manufacturers, I did my good deed, and donated 112 motors to the DPRG, giving 2 encoded, coreless gearmotors to each paid member. It was my goal when i got these different motors to spread them out to the robotics community, to do the most good. It looks like I am succeeding

6 Apr 2003

Sun, 6 Apr 2003 16:01:54 GMT

Recent stuff:

The motor donation project has gone well so far. I have been getting really nice coreless motors, and donating/selling/keeping them.

The Thousand Oaks Robotics Club is moving along. I am working on getting an oscilliscope, power supply, soldering irons, and vises. We have been working on solar bots, and my 12 whegged robotic centepede.

IsoPod:

My article in Circuit Cellar came out recently. I have gotten good feedback so far...

22 Nov 2002

Fri, 22 Nov 2002 03:45:00 GMT

Well, my fledgling group in Thousand Oaks California has a few more members. These guys actually have built robots, which is really exciting. I have spent a lot of time teaching, but have had precious little time to work on my own projects.

Somehow, after working with motors and microprocessors all day, I get a little tired of it at night. well, for about 1/2 an hour, then i am right back into it.

24 Oct 2002

Thu, 24 Oct 2002 17:30:36 GMT

Work is too crazed.

19 Sep 2002

Thu, 19 Sep 2002 05:20:36 GMT

IsoPod IsoPod IsoPod

My life seems to be embroiled in the IsoPod. I had an article about the IsoPod accepted by poptronics, and I have submitted another to Circuit Cellar. I am laying the ground work for a project book about the IsoPod, and have been working on professional projects with the IsoPod.

I have been playing with dual PID on the pid, analog sensing, SPI, SCI, quadrature, and sensor fusion.

Perhaps I should name my kids IsoPod

27 Jul 2002

Sat, 27 Jul 2002 01:01:08 GMT

6 Volt Dual H-bridge

Well, I set forth to build a 6 Volt dual H-Bridge based on the TPIC0108B from texas instrumants. I managed to layout 2 of them on a 1.2" x 1.4" board. I received my boards today.

The low voltage is the key here. Many people ignore that when playing with the robotics stuff. The go for the LM18200 or LM18201, and fail to notice the minimum voltage. Wish me success.

5 Jul 2002

Fri, 5 Jul 2002 13:51:19 GMT

ROBOGEEKS.com is coming along nicely.

I have been working diligently on content for it.

Look for articles on the following:

Mark III mini sumo review

Lynx Motion Hexapod III review

Addendum to my optical mouse hack

National Control Devices' Noritake VFD display.

Construction articles

Beginners Corner

I put a lot of time in this week on learning the IsoMAX, the state machine language of the IsoPOD. It's taking a bit of getting used to, but the reap is well worth the toil. Setting a virtual machine which scans an R/C servo back and forth at a variable rate was a really neat thing to see, considering it became a background task, and the processor was still available to me in the foreground ! I have been accused of ``pimping'' the IsoPOD, but simply put, in my opinion, it's the most powerful thing available to the amateur roboticist.