My package from USA arrived today. It contains the Tamiya dual gearbox, some tank treads, wheels and other stuff. Now I just need some time…
It must feel almost like
It must feel almost like christmas! 
Do you have any overall plan on what you’re going to build and what it will be able to do or are you just going to experiment a little with the new parts first?
From your previous postings it seems you know stuff about electronics… is this motivated by robotics or is it a hobby you have or something?
- Jimmy
It is a sort of christmas
… And the box is sitting next to me… at work… can’t wait to get home.
I was tinkering a bit with electronics some years ago, but haven’t touched it a while. The robotic thing is a bit of an excuse to take up that hobby again.
The first plan is to just create a small robot on wheels or the tracks. I think I’ll mount some bump sensors on them at first. Later, I’ll try the “LED as a light sensor” project as sensors for a line follower. Also, since I forgot to order the ultra sound sensor, I have bought some transducers and plan to see if I can create my own sensor. It’s fun challenge and you learn more about the electronics by creating your own stuff. If I succeed, I’ll put up a guide here.
I can’t remember if I wrote it anywhere, but I did manage to get a small Lego (oh no. Frits is going to yell at me for using the L-word 
) car going straight with the adder/subtracter or whatever it was called, that you described. I had some difficulties, because my differential gears are the old style, that are larger than the ones you used. I don’t know if I will finish it, now that I have the other stuff to build from, but maybe. After all, the Toy Which Shall Not Be Named is fast for prototyping.
Oh, and I got a solar panel (or solar cell or whatever it’s called in English). I’ll try to see if it can deliver enough power to drive a small robot. It’s rather large (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=7840), so the robot can’t be that small. On the other hand, there is a limit to the power it can deliver, which put a limit to the weight of the robot. It’s going to be a fun challenge.
TAMIYA twin-motor gearbox
Hey JKA,
You want to assamble the TAMIYA twin-motor gearbox in "C"-mode, ratio 203:1
The A & B setups, 58:1 are really fun because they are fast etc… until you try to make your robot use it. It is simply not strong enough for the fast-changing pulses etc from a PIC-controller, it is useless because it takes so much time to accelerate, and many setups will not ever get up to speed at all…
I am sure you do not believe me (I would not), and I am sure you will have fun assambling, testing-deassambling, realizing the new hole does not fit with your creation, re-building etc etc ;D
/ Frits
Aye I want Tamiya to produce
Aye I want Tamiya to produce that gearbox with 540 sized motors!
I did do the C
I did do the C configuration, before I read your post. Thought that the 58:1 was not enough.
Speaking of Polulu, they have another double-gear box: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/114 which can be configured to 115:1, if you wan’t something inbetween the 58 and 203 ratio.
For the hill-climbing workhorse robot, you can go for the http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/68, which can be configured to 5402:1.