Archive for the ‘ Electronic ’ Category

MSE-6: Progress

Lots of new stuff to tell:

Received my MSE-6 “Mouse” Droid 1:1 Shell !
Yes, just before Montreal Comic Con, I received the little monster shell. It is HUGE compared to what I had expected but I’m very happy about it. The bigger it is, less chances that it’ll get Squished! heh. It also came ‘un-trimmed’ which mean that I still had some work left on the edges to get it cleaned & ready. Here’s a picture of the shell as I received it.

Experimentation with the Arduino!
I had time to experiment and play with my arduino and the various pieces and bits of parts that I bought. Making the LCD and the Keypad work (separately) was probably the most awesome achievement I had made on an electronic point of view in … a Long time. I still had alot of fun figuring out the pinout/code to make them work tho. Only thing with the LCD is that I didn’t figured out how to code it so it use the 2nd line display but that’s another story. Pictures of the LCD interface:

Trimming the MSE-6 “Mouse” droid shell
Using the same techniques as I had seen by many other builders, I decided to get a piece of wood, drop it in the shell and cut the right height. In theory, it works like a charm, In practice, that’s another story… It will require alot of sanding to get the edge good and probably a good shot at the rotatory tool too. Also, I did a few dents on the side so I’ll have to spend tons of time fixing it up with either another piece of plastic or Bondo or any other method I’ll come up with.

Making the inside Support for the MSE-6 “Mouse” droid
The way I’ve designed my Mouse droid is that it will contain an interchangeable ‘guts’. That piece will hold everything and it’s going to be possible to unscrew 2 screws and remove the ‘board’. That thing allow me to make everything outside of the shell (without breaking anything in the crafting process) and then, just screw the board in and Voila! I also made the schematic for the wireing if you’re curious:

Feel free to comment!

2010
09/23
CATEGORY
Droid
Electronic
MSE-6 'Mouse' Droid
Plastic
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Issues: Burnt Servo

In my various tests, I came to the point of testing my Spektrum DX6 w/ it receiver (AR6000) that I got. Only issue, it didn’t came with a battery for the Rx (It was 2nd hand) so I had to build mine :).  So I got 4 NiCd from the electronic store, solder them in serie and Tada ! I had a 4.8v battery that works with my thing as it was supposed to be (according to the wall charger).  Only issue, I had 2 ‘loose’ connectors instead of the 1x 3 pin connector that is supposed to fit on Rx but… I didn’t minded since it was more of a Test battery. Things goes well, I managed to bind my Rx w/ the Tx and connected 2 servos to it and they were working perfect. Then, my girlfriend wakes up and, all happy, I wanted to show her how great it was… so I plugged the battery with reversed polarity…  :/  All we could hear is … ‘Bzzzztt’ so I unplugged everything fast and looked the little smoke comming from one of the servo…. Gratz me, I managed to burn 2 servos and made a very nice 1/4″ black burn on our dinner table at home.

I have learned the hard way but now I am fully aware of the polarity of my battery. And on the bright side, I managed to get 2 extra connector (3 pins) that were in perfect condition so, I changed the connector on the battery… in case 🙂 oh and, here’s a picture of the little guy who burnt and that I cut into pieces to scavenge the parts 🙂 notice the ‘toasted’ part ? 🙂

2010
09/10
CATEGORY
Electronic
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Arduino: Progress

Received my Arduino package on Tuesday (Sept 7th, 2010)  from RobotShop.ca!

The WaveShield:
after a few issues (including Swear words & burn & wrong soldering & Soldering Iron issue) and 2 days, I managed to get the WaveShield all solder up and working. It’s not the best shield I could have got but it’s a cheap and cheerful solution for the Mouse Droid audio system. If I have to give comments on it, I’d say it’s an efficient solution if willing to sacrifice on sound quality (still better than some other solution) since the limit for the waves files are 16bits @ 22khz in Mono. As you can read, that’s a bit far from CD quality and galaxy-far from 328kbps MP3s but for replicating a droid which limit itself to ‘beep’ and ‘bloop’ and stuff like that, that’s Plenty. On the other hand, I would not use that shield when I’ll be building the Astromech since the R-Series have a bit more of an evolved sound system needs compared to the mouse droid. Another positive thingy about that shield is that it use SD cards and I had a few extra laying home so… quite a good thing for me.

R/C receiver:
I had this weird idea of using the Arduino to ‘listen’ on my Rx’s channels. At first, it was for fun that I tried but after a few trial/error, I got somewhat dedicated in making this work the way I would like it to so, I spent countless minutes/hours trying to figure out how to interpret the signal/pulse from the receiver with the Arduino. I came up with tons of idea, each weirder than the other but nothing was working. Deception was great BUT… out of a last attempt before giving up (read: to continue later), I tried to hook up the receiver power directly to the Arduino 5V / Gnd (since my batteries were dieing a bit). Out of nowhere, I looked at the serial output and I noticed that everything was working perfectly and my signal was always contained in between 1100 and 1900 microseconds depending on the High/Low of the Tx. Personal Hint: Never underestimate the power of the shared Gnd !

Motor drive:
For the mouse droid, I am still struggling on which approach to use for the wheels. I currently have a scavenged rear wheel assembly from an old R/C car that would fit (wrong wheels but that’s a detail for now) but the motor used in there is a simple 6v DC motor without ESC. I still have to figure out if I’m going to use this way or build another assembly for it. If I decide to use it, I simply have to use a MOSFET that will link the battery w/ the motor and provide power that way. It would sure work but the issue I’ll have is that I won’t have a way to use reverse on this, which is somewhat necessary if I want to use it in the end. Maybe a 2nd MOSFET w/ an inverted circuit and depending on which ‘command’ the Tx send, the proper MOSFET gets activated. Just need to be careful to not activate both at the same time :/ (Read: Bzzzzttt!)

2010
09/10
CATEGORY
Arduino
Electronic
MicroController
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