Project Phoenix, a hexapod robot

Lynxmotion Legged Robots
441

Hi,

I’ve been having some fun with my old original Phoenix again. The body frame with coxa brackets has been laying around in my workshop for a very long period of time. Every time I saw that poor little thing I said to myself that I’ll rebuild her again…

And finally, I found a purpose for her. I thought that it would be fun to join Xan and Kurt’s work on the TA (terrain adaption) part. So I found an easy way to make some simple foot sensors. I’m also using the ARC-32 board only because I’m also going to use this as a test platform for the phoenix/ARC code mostly for testing out sections for MorpHex.

Here are some pics of the tibia’s with micros-switch based sensors. As you can see I borrowed Jim’s principle of function and I’m also using parts from his other SES tubing leg. It seem to work very well!

Sort of exploded view:

The lower holder-part is glued to the end of tibia:

Completed part, rear view:

Front view:

Side view, as you can see there is a little gap between the tibia part and the switch trigger to make space for free movement of the foot switch:

Foot switch activated:

The picture quality isn’t very good since I took them in my office at work. But you get the picture… :wink:

The new foot is a little offset from the center of coxa, but I don’t think that will be a very big problem. Thats actually also the case for the LM Phoenix too. And we all know she perform very fine. If it should be a problem this can be solved by some simple trig math in the IK section (ref. Xan’s Phoenix code).

As said, I’m using the ARC-32 board only. Like I did in 2007 I’m mounting the board on top of the upper body plate. Actually, it is possible to mount it inside but the board get a little in conflict with the middle coxas. I also wanted easy access to the board and more space for servo wires, battery regulator, XBee ++. And to make her look more alike the original. :smiley:

Since this is more like a test platform I don’t see it as a new robot project. If that was the case I would go for a completely different design.

I must say I’m pretty impressed how well the ARC-32 board perform! I still need to do some speed tests. But it appear to work very fast. Sadly my old Phoenix won’t perform as smooth as the Lynxmotion Phoenix aluminium version due to flexible femurs and the 475’s. But it will hopefully do the job and the foot switches seem to work very well.

Here are some pictures of her:

For the fun of it I placed one of the A-Pod abdomen covers on top of her. This is also a good illustration of how large A-Pod is compared to little Phoenix. :laughing:

New name: TA-Phoenix.

Some facts:
Weight: 1,77 kg!
Battery: 2S 2000 mAh LiPo
Electronics: ARC-32, XBee with chip antenna, 1x Turnigy UBEC voltage regulator
Servos: 6x HS-475HB (coxa), 12 x HS-645MG (femur and tibia)

Fun to have her back again! :smiley:

442

As always it is looking great!

Kurt

443

Hi Kåre,

That’s an interesting way to handle the foot contact!

I’ve been playing with microswitches for the gripper I’m working on. I must have ordered 30 or more! Which switch, or what force rating did you use in your leg? Did you calculate a needed force per leg?

Maybe I can do something similar for my aluminum legs…

Nice work!

Alan KM6VV

444

loving the mini phoenix. 8)

interesting way to use the foot sensor. i have a few sets myself and i have been looking at new ways to use them. your idea seems to work well. … video?

anyway, very cool and hope to see more.
ps… MorpHex… thats been a while! any updates?

445

Thanks for your comments guys! :smiley:

I believe it should be possible to read it on the picture. :wink: Its a very common SS-5GL, thats about 50gram force needed. I didn’t do any complicated calculations. Jim and Xan’s work on the hybrid proved that this type of switch should work fine. The principle is very equal to Jim’s switch, he uses SS-5GLT. I’m not sure whats the difference between the GL and GLT? Anyway, they both require about 0,49N.

Not much done there, but like I said I wanted to test part of the ARC-32 code on Phoenix first. So this is actually a little part of the MorpHex project too. I’m waiting for 36 Starlites from BasicMicro for background light on MorpHex. Thats going to be cool, I hope. :smiley:

446

I like the way you solved the ground contact for your Phoenix. Pretty cool. One thing for sure with all three of you working on it, it’s going to be amazing!

447

Thanks Jim! :smiley:
Yeah, its going to be fun to start on the TA work.

448

Hi Zenta,

I really Like your Robot. Which CAD program did you use to Design it?

449

Thanks, glad you liked it. CAD? So far I’ve not used CAD to design any of my robots.

450

@zenta
im newbie about robotic, and i dont understand why u add switching or fsr sensor on foot hexapod?
I see there’s 2 wires in the switch, the cable connect to ssc32 or to the BB2?
and how does it work?

thanks

451

Thanks for it.