To Buy A Gyro

[Private Reid]

Where would I buy a gyro for my robot? And how much would one be?

thanks

[JesseWelling]

Depends on what you need. But I think SparkFun has the best selection.
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=23_85

[Admin]

All of the sparkfun gyros that say 'breakout' require an external amplification circuit to get any useful signal out of them:
http://www.societyofrobots.com/schematics_voltamp.shtml


(I bought one and learned the hard way)

[Private Reid]

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ESKY-RC-plane-model-parts-EK2-0704-Esky-Gyro-for-King-2_W0QQitemZ280217300316QQihZ018QQcategoryZ110026QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

what about this?

this is a gyro

can it be used in a robot?

[frank26080115]

If I understand correctly, those RC gyros are meant to compensate for torque by helping to adjust the speed of a tail rotor's ESC, which means if you feed it a pulse of 1500 microseconds, it returns a pulse back with a longer or shorter pulse depending on the amount of rotation experienced. So have a microcontroller generate the pulse and read the length of the returned pulse. This is a slower process than analog readings, but hey, it's fast enough for those kickass 3D flying helicopters.

I can be talking out of my ass on this one though, so correct me if I'm wrong.

[JesseWelling]

All of the sparkfun gyros that say 'breakout' require an external amplification circuit to get any useful signal out of them

The Melexis Gyros have SPI output and I can't get at those specific Gyros' DataSheets but at work we use a Melexis Gyro and it's a really good part (we do A2D though), I think we have like a 1 percent degree of error after biasing it.

[Trumpkin]

I think this will work http://www.trossenrobotics.com/store/p/4915-KRG-3-Gyroscopic-Sensor.aspx?feed=Froogle

[JonHylands]

I use this "breakout" gyro board:

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=395

in my six-axis IMU, and I have no trouble hooking the output of that directly to one of the A/D ports on my ATmega168. I get full 0-1023 readings as well.

Admin, why do you think you need an opamp? The part outputs a signal from 0-5 volts...

- Jon

[Admin]

It appears sparkfun has come out with lots of new gyros recently . . . Im not familiar with many of them . . .

This is the one I got:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=741
It definitely needs amplification . . .