I’ve been reading posts on this forum for ages but I just wanted to clarify a few things before I drop $1000 the on the J5 to make sure that I can achieve what I want to achieve.
I want to create an autonomous J5. I’m planning on mounting a pico-ITX motherboard to the chassis and running Windows XP on it. I’m also planning on writing a custom console app (in Real Studio - very similar language to Visual Basic) that will run on the onboard Windows XP installation to control the J5.
If I understand correctly, the J5 kit comes with the SSC-32 controller which is I think is used to control the servos which move J5’s arms, waist, etc. Is it possible to connect the motherboard to this controller over serial (i.e. USB to serial) and communicate with it that way? I want to write an app in Real Studio that will be able to read the positions of the servos and manipulate them over serial. I know I could use the Sequencer programme but that’s a GUI app I need programmatical access to the servos.
Also, does the SSC-32 have analogue and digital pins that I could use to, for instance, control a Ping)) ultrasonic ranger finder or some LEDs (for the robot’s mouth) or would I need to mount a third PCB (perhaps an Arduino) to do this?
I’m planning on making a custom head containing two webcams that I will also connect via USB to the motherboard to allow me to do some onboard vision-processing with Robot Realm.
I understand this is a complex project (and my first one in robotics!) but I’m a patient man and I’m really keen to see this through.
There are two schools of thought here. Cram a ton of stuff on the bot, or offload most everything to a pc. You could also do a mix of the two I suppose.
The SSC-32 has 4 analog inputs and any of the outputs can be used as digital on/off. However you do not have fast access to these pins though, so no ping, due to the timing required.
It can be an overwhelming project. Take it one section at a time.
Sage advice. Would you recommend perhaps just starting with the track base - getting the picoITX and SSC-32 mounted on that and controllable and then picking up the torso/arms of Johnny 5 from you guys? Would that be a more sensible approach for a newcomer?
Ah. Bummer. I get I could try to shoe-horn a mini Arduino board on there too…
I really like the idea of cramming as much on the chassis as possible - no ties to a desktop PC would be the dream
I’m trying to find a reliable source for the XP OS.
Are you going to use a SSD? I’ve got a SATA drive for now, I’ll addd SSD later.
It’s a good idea to delegate A/D and servo functions anyway. How many servos do you need? Maybe just run them from a BotBoarduino or Arduino. Then you’d have your analog for sonar. Or use I2C for sonar interface.
