My boyfriend broke your glasses... ok not really

Community General Discussions
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So i don’t shift the topic in that thread to much. Since my post can be long winded.
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=5680

:smiley: Actually more like the last bit. Late in the game to learn.
A lot of the stuff i’m confronted with, isn’t stuff i can’t eventually do, But an analogy would be like being dropped in the middle of france, with an outdated english <-> french translation book.
But i see a bit i can change in the signature.
The only computer class we had was a Typing class. And nothing with electronics/components.

As for equipment, my popsicle stick arm will probably go unrivaled here at lynxmotion for a little while. It turned out really nice.
We don’t have any hobby shops that sell servos or anything like that near by, and i wouldn’t even know where to buy a cheap oscilloscope.
Most advance tool i have is my $10-$20 radioshack digital multi-meter.

And no, i didn’t date the quarterback, or any of the football team. They were into girls with less morals.
Any Ill feelings or vibes i get from you guys, is more about patience, I’m aggressive and demanding, and i’m horrible at math, and i don’t know jack about how to use most components. I don’t know how the effects of a 22k resister would differ from a 10k resister, or where capacitors step in. And buying/downloading a manual to teach me that stuff, is again (analogy time) like trying to learn the french language from a book.
Sure it can be done, but not as easily as having someone that already knows to teach you i person.

My start in robotics happened like this:
I wanted a mobile webcam/intercom robot so i can talk to people downstairs, cause i’m lazy.
so i got a Wowee Rovio, horrible little device, was noisy, the sound was bad, the webcam was dark even in a reasonably lit room, and what’s worse, it had zero customization. So i couldn’t add a serial controlled arm to it. It would have made a great platform if the firmware was customizable.

So i decided to start from scratch, got my rover body, the BB2 and the BAP28, was eventually going to get a 1.2ghz wireless camera.
Control the thing with bluetooth and use the audio link in the bluetooth module to communicate.
Then i got more interested in robotic arms.
Long story short, my original goal went out the window and now i have a tiny tracked rover with a 6 DOF arm. (DOF = points of movement right?)

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You’re a true sport. The extra sentence in your sig does help. Sorry I couldn’t resist the humor I posted. :stuck_out_tongue: I hoped it wouldn’t offend. The term DOF stands for degree of freedom. Many mistake the gripper open / close as a DOF but it’s not. DOF’s are what move the end effector around in 3D space. Opening and closing a gripper does not do that. :smiley:

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Ok then it has 5 DOF + Gripper. I could probably do 6, but i’d need another MG90 servo. For micro servos, the MG90/MG90s are a bit expensive at about $10 a piece. Most micro servos are $3-5 each.
It’ll have a better gripper as soon as i can fine a nice micro servo gripper, or can find a way to make a nice one.
I have an idea of one, but i keep coming back to tools required to make one.
I’m not easily offended, and i have a really good sense of humor. Most guys find that to intimidating though.

I’ll get a video of my robots arm going as soon as i get my new bluetooth adapter and i talk my friend into bringing his camera over, i asked him like 5 times and he’s been over 3 times, and has brought it over 0 times.
I’m also trying to find a 4x3x2" plastic hobby enclosure, radioshack didn’t have any of that size.

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You never have to worry about asking anything here. There are people here at all levels of experience in pretty much every area you would want to know about, and that is a great thing for the community. Some are more into hardware and others are more into software and everybody has their own areas of expertise and interest.

I started out in 2006 with a pretty simple two wheeled robot (W.A.L.T.E.R.) that moved using two continuous rotation servos. I quickly outgrew that because it couldn’t carry all the stuff I wanted to load on it and converted to using two gear head motors and much larger wheels. Since then, I’ve designed a complete new set of decks that were made for my by Alan (KM6VV) on his CNC. After a year or so away from robotics, I am getting excited about it all again and am gradually changing WALTER from two wheels centered in the chassis to two wheels at the back that are independently steerable. I’ll tinker with this until I can get another motor controller. Then he will become a four wheeled robot with all independently steerable wheels. From here I expect to do much more work with sensors and autonomous behaviors. :slight_smile:

Every once in awhile I look back at where I started and am amazed at how much I have learned, mostly from people right here. :smiley: Now I can help others with the stuff I have learned and am doing. :smiley: It’s nice to see somebody else here actively working on rovers. :smiley: Many are working on walkers, and that also interests me, but the cost of putting one together (servo cost) is just beyond what I can do right now. I would love to build an eight legged walker based on the body of a spider. :smiley:

Just remember this: There is no such thing as a stupid question! :slight_smile: If you need to know and haven’t been able to search out an answer, just ask and somebody will step up and try to help. :slight_smile: There is so much you can do learning about and tinkering with robotics! Just pick an area of interest, jump right in, and ask for help when needed.

Welcome to the fold! :smiley:

8-Dale

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Ya but occasionally i’ll be told to search google or ask on another forums.
Google is ok for general searches, but not really specific searches or request.
And joining other forums to ask a question, defeats the purpose of asking here.

I still don’t know what i’d need to do to use those MOSFETs or if i even can. It’s not about how to use the mosfets so much as how to use those specific mosfets, i literally have 25 mosfets on that board that may be usable. I don’t know what components i’d need to use them with the BB2’s high/low signals to turn them on and off.

People can do a 1 minute MS paint thing, they don’t even have to get the symbols right, as long as stuff is labeled. IE the mosfets drain pin vs the other pins, or a transistors C/B/E pins, just label which is C B or E instead of spending 5 minutes drawing a transistor symbol.
Only thing that would make it easier, is listing the color bands on any required resistors. (Or the numbers for surface mount resistors, i salvage those too)

See i’m kind of demanding, people just need patience with me.

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I agree with the guys. When I started building robots I got a lot of information about robotics from this place. Everybody is always willing to help. I do think that most of the guys here work with off the shelf electronics. But there are some guru’s that know a lot about components here. I’m pretty sure they want to help yah.

Although I studied electronics for 13 years it is a bit rusty. But I’ll try to give you a push in the right direction. The big difference between a transistor and a FET is that a transistor react on current. A FET reacts on voltage. Unlike a transistor, a FET got a Gate, Source and a Drain. :wink: To use a FET as a switch you need to setup the switching voltage using some resitors. An example and some information can be found on this website (figure 9-3).

The best thing to do is getting yourself a breadboard end do some smallscale experiments with some resistors and the FET’s you’ve got. Another good simulation program we used a collage is Pspice. It’s free for students. You can build and simulate everything before buying the needed components.

I hope this helped.

Xan

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Although forums are a great source of information, it is not a great format for teaching topics like electronics. FETs are Field Effect Transistors and it works like a water valve where the magnetic field regulates the flow of electrons. If you really want to get into this stuff I would recommend “Getting started in electronics” by Forrest M. Mims III. I have this book and it really helps with understanding how the basic components work. At the back of the book, there are several sample circuits that you can bread board and experiment with.

I don’t know enough about electronics beyond the basics to be helpful. When I build a circuit, I use examples and then build on those examples by experimenting.

forrestmims.org/publications.html