Retractable Line Follow and New PCB's

I just got another order of PCB's delivered, ones that I designed. New 3A power boards, IR beacons, on-board battery chargers but most importantly, an AWESOME new line-follow board. Just wanted to do a quick, little Walter update and show you what I am up to... We are getting very close to the wonderful final step of paint!

So here are the regular boards:

New Battery Charger. This is an on-board charger and will stay attached to the robot. It can power the robot as it charges the batterys, has an automatic trickle and even a data-out to show the state of charge (charge/trickle). I used this data-out to trigger a relay board which will be used to turn on my cooling fans. This charger circuit is simply bad-ass and can be confirgured in unlimited ways. It is based around a max712 and/or max 713. Here is the post all about it.

Next is my 5v 3A power boards. Nothing fancy here, just a regular volt regulation. I did add the nifty screw terminals to clean up a lot of the spagetti under Walter's chassis. One is for the major parts and the second is just for the servos.

IR Beacon --Just an 08m, 5 IR LED's and a transistor.

But now, here is the good stuff... New line follow system!! I designed the PCB to accept the mini servo with all mounting holes pre-drilled for me. In addition, there is a reed switch on the back which lines up with a magnet when the arm is retracted. This keeps the IR emitters turned off. When the arm is lowered, the magnet is moved out of the way and thus turns on the sensors. --Good stuff! 

Keep scrolling down, the pictures should explain everything.

Tell me that ain't cool...