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- How do I talk to motors and sensor with a computer?
What kind of motors/sensors would I use for the robot described?
- How do I power this sort of thing?
- How would I get the necessary parts to build it (design them, order them, etc)?
Quote from: sandboxbuddy92 on October 31, 2009, 03:04:59 PM - How do I talk to motors and sensor with a computer?Probably parallel or serial port would be the easiest. Or maybe uart?Quote from: sandboxbuddy92 on October 31, 2009, 03:04:59 PMWhat kind of motors/sensors would I use for the robot described?Probably dc motors with encoders or steppers...DC motors are easier to interface for someone new but will require encoders to give position feedback.Steppers are more complicated to control but are much more accurate and need no position feedback to know their position.Quote from: sandboxbuddy92 on October 31, 2009, 03:04:59 PM - How do I power this sort of thing?Well, if it was me, i would use a wall wart or similar, batteries seem like a bit of a waste if it is going to be immobilized.Quote from: sandboxbuddy92 on October 31, 2009, 03:04:59 PM - How would I get the necessary parts to build it (design them, order them, etc)?For the electronics, a site such as futurlec/digikey would suffice.But that is if you want to build the electronics yourself, if you cant be bothered and want to buy a premade board there are heaps of sites that offer such control boards, just Google!
Ok, two options are:1. board to communicate between pc and sensors, DC motor and an encoder + power supply etc...2. board to communicate between pc and sensors, stepper motor + power supply etc...Of coarse there and a lot more ways of doing this, im just outlining two that i think would be fairly easy for a person new into electronics.The term "stamp", the first thing that pops into my head is the stamp dev board... I dont know if thats what your thinking? For programming languages, i don't really have much experience with "on pc" languages so i cant help with that too much. But most of the standard usb interface boards will come with software to get you started whether it be a ready made program that you use or one where you code it yourself using their library of something...
Quite simple really, the setup would basically be:(PC) - (interface board) - (motors+sensors+power supply)The power supply doesn't have to be anything special, it can just be a battery pack or a wall wart.The supply will most likely plug into the interface board which will power the motors and electronics.You probably could program the board in c++ but most pre-made boards will come with some kind of program readily made, chances are that you could make up a program in c++ but it will vary from board to board.
One board that im thinking about right now is the phidgets board: http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=0 .The only thing is that they are kinda pricey... But they have what your looking for.A cheaper option that im thinking about is using an arduino as one, using the USB output to talk to a pc through hyperterminal or something along those lines, i think its been done before...About the other problem, the motor will be mounted on top of another motor, so it will tangle wires?I think i have an idea about what you mean... This is a tricky one, look around for a bit, someone else must've done it before, im thinking contact plates right now but that might get a bit tricky...
thx that helps a lot. I looked at those boards....are the motor wires supposed to get wired in to those green hole things? also....what supplies the power to those boards?
I'm surprised that the contact plate issue isn't more common...I'll look around and see what I find.
do you happen to know how many degrees one "step" is on a stepper motor?
on the page http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=0&product_id=1018, would that board be able to power two steppers and a sonar sensor (http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=2&product_id=1128)?
Those steppers are kinda pricey... I would look around a bit and see if you can get any cheaper ones.Not sure if the torque would be sufficient but http://www.futurlec.com.au/StepperMotors.jsp
Yup, it can control two steppers, but it is not likely it will be able to control it directly.You will most likely need to have a relay/transistor in between them.As for the sonar, it can take it, it has analogue inputs.