Lucky score! Cheap, tiny motors and gears...

[Gopher]

Went to my local radio shack to buy some supplies to really get started on my robot project this weekend, and to my amazement they still had a large display of Zip-zap Rc cars and accessories. It was mostly just zipZap SE cars and replacement body kids, but they did have the Zipzap monster truck upgrade kits. Each kit contains 3 different motors (8k, 14.5k, and 21k rpm) and a set of two gears for each of them. And they're marked down to a clearance price of $5.

On inspection back home, the gears were an even better score than I thought; for each motor, one is a large hubbed gear with a square bore, presumably made to attach to the axle on the zipzap monster trucks. The others are dual gears about 1cm in diameter, and the major gear on all three has the same diameter and number of teeth, so the three can be used as a set of matched single gears.

Huzzah! Unfortunately, they were out of photoresistors, but after finding a cache of cheap motors and gears, I hardly cared. Beats paying $5 plus shipping for a single pager motor!

[Admin]

pics please!

might be useful for future microbot projects . . .

[Gopher]

Here's a pic from RadioShack.com

I forgot to buy jumpers for my solderless breadboard. Fortunately, I have a box of small, plastic-coated paper clips.

[Charlie1138]

That sounds really cool, Gopher. Keep us all posted on your progress! 

[Gopher]

Fear not, I will

Now that I've finally started getting back into robotics, I can't for the life of me figure out why I stopped for so long. Daunted at having to learn all the stuff my old partner-in-crime knew about electronics, I guess, but there something so much more satisfying about making something you can hold in your hand, as opposed to just making software (which is what I've been doing since I got out of robotics).

My current project will keep me busy for a while, but I've got so many fun, simple ideas I want to play around with... Next year I might try my hand at a competition of some sort; probably ant-weight sumo, though I read something about a new style of competition which the rules were recently released for, where autonomous microbots compete in pushing around wooden blocks; points for every red block in your base, minus for every blue, after a time limit. Very cool, probably a little ambitious for me at present but I love a challenge!

[Charlie1138]

I know what you mean about the electronics. It scares me too! I don't even kniow where to start. I guess we just need to jump in and do it. If someone else can do it we can do it, right?!

Those motors are cool. Thanks for the link.

[Handmixer.com]

For breadboarding circuits, just use the wire from computer connection cables, the ones that go between the machine and the broadband connection plug thing. Cut the ends off and strip. Thats where I get my wire from. Really cheap, sometimes free. I find it in dumpsters and junkyards all the time.