Axon has a competitor!

[Ro-Bot-X]

Check this out guys:
The Spider Controller

This sounds nice: Spider Controller powered by WebbotLib!

[Webbot]

Hmmm - wonder if they have a WebbotLib board design

[Ro-Bot-X]

The product will be available soon from different distributer stores, like RobotShop, Pololu, Sparkfun...

[Admin]

You know what they plan to sell it for?

[Ro-Bot-X]

The maker from Dagu said it depends on the distributors...

[Joker94]

The maker from Dagu said it depends on the distributors...

He also has come out and said it should be roughly the price of the Arduino Mega

[Ro-Bot-X]

I have updated the link in the first post, as OddBot kept editing the pages...

The only problem I have with the Spider is that it uses a built in 3A 5V switching power supply from 7-30V input to drive the servos, which is not good enough for standard size servos in a biped or hexapod. Even if it's capable of driving 48 micro servos at once, the servos have to be unloaded or light loaded to work fine.

I still think Axon II is a better design...

[Joker94]

Spider is that it uses a built in 3A 5V switching power supply from 7-30V input to drive the servos

like you said, not practical for 48 micro servos under light loading let alone 10 standard servos with a light load.

Although it is nice to be able to use a unregulated power source it is impractical for a larger robot using the number of servos that are intended.


Yes, the Axon and Axon 2 is better though out in respect to servos power and overall design.

[madsci1016]

The only problem I have with the Spider is that it uses a built in 3A 5V switching power supply from 7-30V input to drive the servos,

Yeah, that's a horrible design flaw.

[Admin]

3A is enough to drive about 5 standard servos without current problems . . .

[Ro-Bot-X]

Spider Controller manual.

[totalis]

As much as i am in favour of a free market and many people having lots of designs, i cant help but feel that there are a few flaws with the design.

Having built all of my own connectors, i have been fortunate enough to customise all of the 2 and 3 pin power, motor etc. connectors so that they can use 3pin 'servo' headers, it just seems a little odd to use male and female connectors...

hey, we might be missing out...

also where are the caps? i can see what i think are caps but they dont look very big or (48) servo friendly.

cool choice for the regulator though... seems a good investment.

just my 10 pence

T

[Ro-Bot-X]

You need a shield to use powerful servos:
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/26226



I wish he would add some FETs to be able to switch servo power On by the microcontroller after sending control pulses, so the servos don't move at power up.