use a spring to hold the
use a spring to hold the tension on the string
Board contacts
Good going Patrick you can be darn proud of your self.
Your documentation and openness of this project is sure going to score you points in this world.
I am sure that one of your biggest problems is placing those pieces down on the board.
Am I right?
If so i may have a few solutions and options for you.
On Strings
You mentioned in your video issues with the string. Have you tried fishing line? Or garden strimmer line?
This project is stunning, by the way!!
well i am working on the
well i am working on the chess piece sensors and the new analog circuit i have added. I have yet to actually place a piece down. It does seem that it may be accurate enough so im not too worried about it at the moment. I do need to update this once i have time to work on the sensor code, maybe tomorrow. I do find that the pieces some times do not read, usually the solution is some sanding over the tarnishing metal.
i do want to try fishing
i do want to try fishing line, it has been one of my ideas from the start. I have someone in my house how thinks fishing line is a terrible idea… so i havent tried it yet.
I think that nylon(fishing
I think that nylon(fishing line) will be a bad idea, its too strechy.
I have seen a smooth looking string before and it had a few strands of wire in it to reduce its elasticity. I dont know what its called But I am sure this kind of thing would work.
Not sure if you can get wire rope light enough for what you are doing.
yeah might end up switching
yeah might end up switching to a stepper motor to move the top like the cnc machines
To me it seems that the
To me it seems that the wires are too irregular. (not flat enough) this is giving you very little contact area and therefore sensitive to any corrosion or tarnish build up. This irregularity will also make the pieces unstable and more difficult to place.
The ideal situation would be 3 flat heat copper nails in a triangle (a three legged bar stool never wobbles right?) you only use 2 in your wiring and the 3rd is just for support.
Keeping the heads of the nails level and all tree at the same height could be achieved by driving the 3 nails at once with a flat block.
Keeping the heads of the nails level and all tree at the same height could be achieved by driving the 3 nails at once with a flat block.
You could also think about putting a neodymium magnet on the board between the wires. You would then also need to have a steel plate at the base of each piece or another magnet.
I would lay the magnets into the wood so that they are lower than the wires. This way the gap between the magnets and steel plate allows for a weaker clamp force. It will be like the magnets are just making the pieces heavier and attracted to a centre point.
You can get the magnets in all sorts of shapes and sizes and the right ones will not affect surrounding pieces.
Just some of my thoughts, I am always too critical and it may just work fine as it is.
The ultimate situation would be to get some proximity sensors below the board, these will switch as soon as the piece is in place, i.e. a short distance away.
Best way to go
Best way to go
my hope is to get this robot
my hope is to get this robot to work, roughly or smooth. Once i have it programmed and saw that arduino could be used for such a thing, then i would build a 2nd one with all these learned problems and experience taken into consideration to build the ultimate one with maybe a good walkthrough. Take this as the proof of concept one, the real one will be after this. Wait till you see the new circuit as it may not work with some of the suggestions. I am getting some of my last projects over with before i pick back up on this one for a while and really get some progress.
Go for it
I’ve used it to drive steering sheels of model cars from servos. The fine stuff can be very stretchy, but because it’s so fine, you can wrap a few turns of it round your mechanism and (unless your chess pieces are exceptionally heavy) you should bearly notice it.
You mentioned that string needed to be reasonably taught, but if it’s too taught it doesn’t work. This is probably because the servos don’t have live bearings (well, the expensive ones do but the cheap ones have only solid copper/brass bushes). As you tighten teh string, you increase the bearing friction.
The additional bonus with fishing line is that, being so fine, you can wrap it around each pulley wheel several times to increase the friction without putting any sideways pressure on the bearing.
Resistors
Would it be possible to create metal chess pieces each with a different resistance so that the board could read the resistance per square to determing the piece type?