Lynxmotion has entered into an agreement with a 3rd party to create a range of robot electronics. We’re just at the gathering ideas stage. I’m asking for input for things like Sensors, Drivers (switches), Peripherals, etc. We’re not discussing microcontrollers here. Feedback…
How 'bout a Speech Synthesis controller? 
Then you could integrate them in the robots and have them talk.
I’d say a small simple multiplexing board would deliver a lot of bang for the buck.
A stackable board with compass, accelerometers, rate gyros, etc. would be interesting. I2C interface ?
Alan KM6VV
You know me Jim, I have an obsession with sound sensors and Speech chips. In fact, I was in the process of designing another new 2-in-1 board that will have both sound sensing and speech on one board using the bot board form factor.
Quick answer:
1.) Speech Board (Speakjet)
2.) Sound sensor(s)
3.) Speech recognition using the VR Stamp
4.) Accelerometers
Are Accelerometers the same as Gyro’s? if not, I think there should be gyro’s instead. Also the Speech Recognition is good in theory, but could get a little expensive IMO.
Edit: I googled “VR Stamp” because I did not know what it was, and on the product page the description states that the chip can do both Speech Recognition and Speech Synthesis.
I would love it if Lynxmotion were to build a proportional 360’ servo. Something that would allow a dial on a transmitter to control the angle of the servo, but continuously. This is hard to explain. Pretty much a continuous rotation servo where you can turn a dial on your transmitter and the servo will follow exactly, yet has no end point limitation. In other words a servo where the 5-0V gap is delt with, so I can put one in my RADs.
Cheers,
An addressable latch board might be of interest. I’ve tinkered with the 74HC259 chips and they are simple to deal with. One could individually control hundreds of christmas lights via the ssc-32 and become the hit of the neighborhood.
A cheap side-scanning laser range-finder would be nice 
Like a poor cousin to the Sick range.
I was building a simple one using rotating polygon mirrors from old supermarket barcode scanners, but lost focus (no pun intended) a while back.
I like to have a high current and efficient switching regulator, which takes typical rechargeable battery and drop it to 6V, with optional 5V and 3.3V. Minimum input range of 7V to 12V. If they can design an even wider range, that’s even better! 
Lots of different things:
New controllers, like the DIY remote, or maybe interface boards to XBee modules. Maybe some interface board that accepts n Channel receivers (hitec, futaba, DIY…) and provides a simple handshake back to the main processor (I2C, SPI, serial,…)
Maybe some standard way to add I2C devices without having to solder(much).
As Zoomkat mentioned, some multiplexing board that allowed you to add more IO lines and/or Analog inputs.
Some form of servo feedback and integration with SSC and/or bap. Open servo? FSRs fed into controller board which analyzes and signals controller board when something happens? Some interface to Hitec digital?..
That is all for now.
Kurt
Would the focus of this be to produce products that are not currently available, or to produce products to compete with ones that are already available from other electronics outlets? I think a board to support making an H-bridge motor controller using the cheap big high current MOSFETs driveable by 5v servo output would be nice.
They are eager to create a series of robot sensors, drivers, and peripherals. Both existing and new concepts are being considered. Lots of good ideas here. Keep them coming. 8)
May i suggest a compass sensor?
How bout a Flux capacitor, so we can go back in time and fix our mistakes that would prevent any magic smoke from ever happening… 8)
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Or just a plane 'ole wireless serial port designed exclusively for the ABB and SSC-32.
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Dedicated force feedback sensor boards
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GPS sensors
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Voltage multiplex board to power peripherals with different voltage requirements.
Some time back I think there was a big project on making one of these with boards being ordered and such. A search might pull up some info on it.
It never made it past prototype stage and it was dropped. Jim did order an adjustable regulator but it did not provide multiple power output options. If I remember correctly, max output was something like 6.5v or somewhere just under 7v. All that aside, it’s only a suggestion to add to the list of ideas.
Small boards that can modulate/demodulate 38khz signals might be useful. One can get the 38khz IR receiver gizmos at Radio Shack, but one has to DIY to receive visible range light and to modulate at 38khz. Might be useful for making positioning beacons and sending/receiving info on laser pointer beams. An IR laser pointer might also be useful.
Just a followup on the muliplexer, looks like sparkfun carries the CD74HC4067 chip and a breakout board, but the chip isn’t soldered to the board, which one commenter said correctly is a PITA. Mouser carries the 28 pin dip version for the DIY types. Probably would be a good market for the chip already soldered to a board, possibly adding jumpered pull down resistors for control inputs that might tend to float.
sparkfun.com/commerce/produc … cts_id=299
sparkfun.com/commerce/produc … ts_id=9056
sparkfun.com/datasheets/IC/CD74HC4067.pdf
mouser.com/Search/Refine.asp … CD74HC4067
Good news! I would like to go for the Flux capacitor as well
And another small wishlist:
- A small I/O extention board would be great! I2C interfaced maybe? Something like this
- Switching regulator
- I’m in for the mux as well
Xan