Well, I finally got around to getting my biped back from Dan, and I’ve spent the last two days tinkering with different configurations.
I think I’ve finally got something that will be able to walk on both two legs and four relatively well.
By the way…
Most of what you see is held together by friction and/or duct tape.
I still have to do a LOT before I can even start with getting this guy walking:
Rewire the servos with flat ribbonwire.
Mount the battery packs (they’re taped to his back, now) properly.
Mount the head properly.
Route the servo wire.
Heatshrink the routed servo wire in place.
Mount the SSC-32.
Get the control board/sensors working.
SMT the biped’s control board.
Mount the control board.
P.S.
You’ll note that I’ve made my own bracket for the monster waist-rotate servo.
Jim better make an SES bracket to mount those buggers soon, or I’ll bite him.
I can’t stand looking at that shiney silver in all of that beautifully black-annodized perfection.
Not sure what you meant by this, but be aware that regular ribbon cable (like found inside of PCs and such) won’t hold up well when it’s going to be bent repeatedly. The wires will break inside the insulation.
There is stuff commonly called “flex cable” that is designed for this sort of thing. Printers use it since the print head must go back and forth a zillion times.
It’s 20ft of flat 22 AWG 3-conductor servo cable from Servo City.
Since my original post, I’ve:
Mounted and connected the battery holders.
Mounted the head properly.
Mounted the SSC-32.
Gotten a bit more done with the prototype of the control board.
Rewired 5 of the 20 servos.
With the control board, I’ve got everything soldered together, now.
I’ve done the LED blinker program, an EEPROM program, and am now working on a USART program.
I’ve got the recieve interupts working fine, but I can’t seem to get the micro to transmit anything.
I’m going to fiddle with that some more, today and see what I can do.
Rewiring those servos is proving to be a very difficult/time consuming task.
Each one takes me about a half hour to do.
Most of this is due to the idiotic placement of the solder pads for the leads.
Some dumbass placed them smack in the middle of the tiny PCB.
I’ve got to hold the iron at really odd angles and be REAL careful because there’s a scattering of ICs and passives all around the pads.
It sort of feels like I’m trying to delicately navigate through a minefield with a steamroller.
At this rate, it’s going to take me all week to finish, since I’m starting school again tomorrow.
All you peasants must now bow to my superior soldering prowess!
Cower in fear!
Trogdorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Burninate the countryside.
Lah-tee-dah.
Ok… yea… 3 hours of soldering has made me (more) insane… and cross-eyed.
I’m going to go test all of the servos.
I powered each of them after each soldering, and they hold their positions, but I haven’t tried sending them instructions, yet.
After that, I still have to route, heatshrink, and then crimp on connectors.
That’ll be tommorow’s “fun”.
Wow… I must be getting old.
It took me a couple minutes to figure out that wasn’t just a string of juxtapositioned adjectives.
Nice word, eh?
That’s write, fellas, eye learn that won in colledge!
But of course…
I did make it, after all.
::buffs back of hand on shirt::
Hehe.
Thanks!
Soccer?
Pshhh!
It’s football!
PROJECT UPDATE:
Um…
Ah…
Er…
Well…
I got one whole arm’s wires routed!
.<
Physics II in the summer totally womps.
I’ve got about this much ( ::holds up two fingers pressed firmly together:: ) free time to work on Midget.
Nah…
I’ve just had a whole string of excellent English teachers, since HS and throughout college.
It helps, too, that books were the only real option to pass the time when I was growing up.
My parents weren’t big on TV, and I couldn’t go out and play for a bunch of crappy medical reasons.
I was a Biology guy, but I’m transferring my major to Computers and EE, now.
I’m not a great sports man myself (wheelchair marathon’s I can do, though!), but it always confuses me when the Americans start talking about football!
theChipmunk
BTW, I’m about to add you to my MSN, if that’s okay, but my username doesn’t match theChipmunk in any way. Without giving my full address out, expect something beginning with LAKE.
Today, I finally had some free time and put it to use finishing the building of my biped.
I’ve gotten all those little wires routed and connectorized (which took me an inordinate amount of time).
I must say, though, that I’m quite happy with the results and the look of the flat servo cables.
So there’s the good news.
What’s the bad news?
The bad news is that I’m too lazy to take pictures to show you guys.
Muahahahaha!
I’ll be calibrating the servos tomorrow and starting the gaits, so I’ll take some pics then (unless I’m too lazy again, heehee).
