Microcontroller, board and H-Bridge?

[pete2009]

Hi Guys,

The more I read the less I know. I'm trying to get a project together.

On the very basic level I will have my microcontroller the board, servos and the interface between the servos and the microcontroller (i'm assuming that's the h-board). I will also be adding some sensors at a later stage.

Now I'm not really a hardware person and am mainly interested i nthe programming side.

I would therefore like for someone to recommend a microcontroller, board and the communication devices that are as much premade as possible so that all is left is the programming (with minimal costruction).

Thanks

[airman00]

hi
whats your budget?

[Trumpkin]

If you are using servos you will not need an H-bridge. You usually only use H-bridges for motors. Depending on your budget I would say to either get an Axon or an Arduino for the microcontroller. For servos I would reccomend a couple of these: http://www.servocity.com/html/hs-475hb_super_pro_bb.html or if you want to go cheaper use these: http://www.servocity.com/html/hs-311_standard.html if you are making something like a "car" robot you might want to buy the servos pre-modified (less construction). Having said all that If you want to have the least construction possible it might be better to go with a kit. It would also be helpful if we knew what you want this robot to do.

[pete2009]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies.
What it does:
Well I want a robot on 4 wheels (all 4 powered). For starters I will have the optical collision sensor(like the 50U$ robot) and once I 'master' that  I will be adding more sensors as well as communicating between the robot and ground sensors.

Budget: Assuming I have the servos (I found a cheap set of 4 SG5010 servos which I will modify for continuous rotation). I also have a box/container/robot frame aleardy designed and have the mats.
The only thing left is the microcontroller, chip/board, and al the I/O interfaces. Having said that I would like to spend under U$100 on those if possible.
Also I would like something that is easily programmable (ie: USB interface for uploading code and possibly onboard debugger) ... I also REALLY would like a good c/c++ compiler

I also have looked at the kit robots but I would like to avoid buying those as the body shape/size might change with new sensor requirements.


PS: One thing I forgot to add .. I'd like to use a 32 bit chip

[Razor Concepts]

An 8 bit chip is plenty powerful, plus you have huge communities (including us) with great experience with them. If you absolutely have to go 32bit look at the AVR32 line or the PIC32 line. Those microcontrollers are more focused on data processing however... you may run into problems trying to get them to work directly with some hardware.

These 32-bit processors are not used as commonly as the 8-bit ones since 8-bit microcontrollers are powerful enough for the vast majority of applications.

[pete2009]

Ok 2 things:

1) Can I  add a 32 bit processor later?
2) What 8 bit unit would you recommend for what I have described above (one that would take servos and sensors directly with easily prgrammable interface)?

[Trumpkin]

1) Can I  add a 32 bit processor later?

probably not (atleast not without changing the board)

2) What 8 bit unit would you recommend for what I have described above (one that would take servos and sensors directly with easily prgrammable interface)?

Arduino, Roboduino or make you own with an atmega168 or atmega8.

[pete2009]

Ok I thin I found a winner. It's 32bit and has all the sensor and servo controlls so I can plug in a battery and everything as is.
http://www.bugblat.com/products/cor.html

Cortino3RE, with a 72MHz STM32F103RE - 512KB Flash ROM and 64KB RAM

Please can you guys look at that and tell me if this is somthing you would reccomend.

Thanks

[jamort]

i think that 32 is a bit of over kill on this.. I would get a couple atmega 8s

[pete2009]

Ok there has been a change in plans. I spoke to a friend of mine who will build me a chassis and install the motors as needed.
The only issue is that the servos are now going to be too weak to power the heavier robot.
I have also decided on the microcontroller board Arduino Mega. It is pretty much the strongest/fastest 8 bit board out there and it has tons of support.

So this brings with it new questions.

1) Can anybody tell me how many operations per second that arduino unit can do. I don't mean cpu calculations, I want to know (if possible) how many sensor signals it can read / motor control signals write per second.
2) I will be using 9v motors, can anybody suggest good speed/voltage controllers which would interface between the 4 motors and the arduino. Simpler (ie: plug & play) regulators preferred.

Thanks again.