Society of Robots - Robot Forum
Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: Sitherus on November 23, 2013, 12:50:39 PM
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ok so im clueless ive built a large a symmetrical robot and im using 2 24vdc motors with a 2x25 sabertooth motor board and arduino uno. i want my robot to self balance but im having trouble finding a good accelerometer i was gonna use sparkfun's 5dof imu but they stopped making it then i was gonna use arduino's 5dof and they ran out of them and havent made more. ive been using manny tutorials because im clueless and really this is a huge step ffrom what i usualy build so i need help. these are the tuts iven been working from to piece together my bot http://www.instructables.com/id/SITWAY/?ALLSTEPS (http://www.instructables.com/id/SITWAY/?ALLSTEPS) http://www.instructables.com/id/Self-Balancing-Scooter-Ver-20/?ALLSTEPS. (http://www.instructables.com/id/Self-Balancing-Scooter-Ver-20/?ALLSTEPS.) i was using them to get the large motors to work because all the other tutorials were for direct motor conection with small motors then i found this one http://www.instructables.com/id/Self-Balancing-Segway-Instructabot/?ALLSTEPS (http://www.instructables.com/id/Self-Balancing-Segway-Instructabot/?ALLSTEPS) he uses this http://www.robotshop.com/en/sfe-3g-tripleaxis-accelerometer-breakout-board-adxl335.html (http://www.robotshop.com/en/sfe-3g-tripleaxis-accelerometer-breakout-board-adxl335.html) will this work for me? my robot is built like the sitway but is wired like the self balancing robot but with a 2x25 this is way over my head but i keep pushing forward i need help
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Also check at Adafruit for accelerometer and other sensors.
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The currently best bang for the buck in accelerometer/gyro boards:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11028 (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11028)
You can find a compatible board on eBay for a fraction of the price, if you'd rather send a small amount of money to China than support the Sparkfun company and community.
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but will this work for my purpose? like i said i dont understand accelerometers at all i dont know how they work
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One reason for supporting Sparkfun is that they give you information like this (https://www.sparkfun.com/pages/accel_gyro_guide).
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Ignore this post; just off-topic babbling from me...
One reason for supporting Sparkfun is that they give you information like this (https://www.sparkfun.com/pages/accel_gyro_guide).
Sure... but a lot of their documentation is just links to other sites. They're nowhere near the quality of guides by, e.g. Pololu.
Yeah, I bought 3 MPU6050s over Ebay for $10 or so. I can't justify a 12x increase in price! :)
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Actually I have never bought from Sparkfun myself, preferring Pololu and its associates and various others. However, my comment should be read in the context where Sitherus was professing ignorance on this particular topic, which I presume you are not, so I gently prodded them toward information already existing to answer their questions and, one would think, easily findable. Different people need different levels of support. Not all recognise that information has a cost which someone has to pay.
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that pretty much sums things up. for beginners places like sparkfun are an excellent source, not only because of docs on their site but also great phone and email support. somebody does have to pay for these things. what is less understandable is when experienced hackers who should know better shoulder the 5x-10x markups over places like ebay and aliexpress. i guess one aspect of my culture is that spending more money just for the sake of it somehow entails bragging rights. specially evident at some rc flying fields where its not how well a radio or model performs but rather who spent the most money on it.
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As an experienced hacker, I do like supporting places like Adafruit, and SparkFun so they can continue helping new people get involved with the 'maker' movement. The little extra I pay for their products go to a very good cause which is education.
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yes, i also recognize patriotic duty to support domestic. specially when it comes to local hobby shops. and respect for ip rights.
however we seem to have slightly different definitions of "little extra". imo 500% markups do not fall in that category. ill repeat that places like jameco, dimension, and sparkfun are best choice for those learning the ropes. but in my case going to the real sources instead of resellers saved me about two grand so far this year for example. and this is hobby stuff im talking about.