Author Topic: Wooden quadruped robot- noob question (Read 1364 times)

Eyeman · « **on:** December 31, 2009, 04:37:54 AM »

Hi all,

After lurking around here for a few years I decided to take the plunge, and build an overly complex robot as my first project.
I want to base the electronics/programming around the '$50' robot tutorial, and had a quick question;
As you can see from my design sketch, it has four legs, of which I will control with one servo each. Plus one servo to tilt
the 'head' up and down. Now that's 5 servos total, and my question is this; do I need any special parts to run this many servos,
or can I basically purchase the $50 robot parts list unaltered(Plus extra servos of course)?
Also, is it difficult to link extra LED's into the circuit just for showiness? In fact, just how much stuff can I run off one microcontroller?

Ok so that's sorta three questions:D

Thanks!

SmAsH · « **Reply #1 on:** December 31, 2009, 05:27:47 AM »

Yeah, the $50 robot controller can definitely take 5 servos plus heaps of led's!
It has somewhere around the park of 18 I/O pins!

Eyeman · « **Reply #2 on:** December 31, 2009, 05:31:06 AM »

Aha! Cool thanks man!

Joker94 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 31, 2009, 05:34:24 AM »

Yes the $50 robot can handle 5 servos, in fact if you build the $50 robot to specs you have upto 5 servo ports so it will work with no modification. Over all you can have well i am not sure of the number but quite a few more. As for the leds yeah you can connect them to any of the left over i/o pins so you could potentially have approximatly 10 different LEDs or more leds working in 10 segments/groups.( you could potentially have 5 leds on the robot connected to a single port and they would act as a group or you could connect those LEDs to different ports for control of all 5).

I hope i answered your question. So yeah the $50 board would easily handle what you have in your outline.

If you have any questions just post your questions.

Good luck

Joker94

EDIT:Sorry I didn't realize smash beat beat me

Eyeman · « **Reply #4 on:** December 31, 2009, 06:09:00 AM »

Thanks Joker, so many cool choices to make!

Joker94 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 31, 2009, 06:13:48 AM »

And don't forget smash, he beat me to it.

so like smash said you can have upto 18 controllable items.

HyperNerd · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2010, 05:55:37 AM »

You would probably need to beef up the power supply though, as the $50 robot does not cater for running 5 servos at once. Th I/O is there, just not the power requirements.

It's an easy fix though, just add a larger regulator, say 3-5 amps. If this is not possible (not really sure), you could use a uBEC or ParkBEC, which are just huge 5v regulators, up to like 10A+ which is waaaayyyyyy more than enough for 5 servos

-HyperNerd

SmAsH · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2010, 06:10:30 AM »

Uhh, servos don't normally run off a regulated supply... They go off a battery...

HyperNerd · « **Reply #8 on:** January 02, 2010, 06:14:17 AM »

I always run mine off a regulated 5 or 6v supply, so they always go at the same speed till the battery dies :-/

-HyperNerd

SmAsH · « **Reply #9 on:** January 02, 2010, 06:16:27 AM »

Ahh, i see... The $50 board doesn't do this though...
Smart idea though!

Joker94 · « **Reply #10 on:** January 02, 2010, 06:20:04 AM »

Quote from: HyperNerd on January 02, 2010, 06:14:17 AM

I always run mine off a regulated 5 or 6v supply, so they always go at the same speed till the battery dies :-/

I see what your getting at

very smart

Joker94

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