Photos with tag "electronics"

2008-07-31: Little PIC

Circuit board bottom side

Circuit board top side

All he does is scurry around and run into stuff

A quick little palm-sized robot built from stuff I had lying around

2008-07-13: Motorcycle-Integrated Garage Door Opener

The box installed beneath the bike's seat (using two AAA batteries to provide the 3v for now, since the voltage regulator circuit isn't working right for some reason)	The circuit boards installed in the enclosure	Underside of my board	My circuit board -- an LM317 adjustable voltage regulator to bring the bike's 12v down to 3v for the garage door opener, and a relay to 'press' the button when the high beams are on
Underside of garage door opener PCB, with power and switch wires soldered on (also a small black jumper wire to replace a connection previously made by a pushbutton	Craftsman garage door opener with the three pushbuttons removed, and with the corners trimmed to fit in my plastic enclosure

2008-07-12: Benchtop Power Supply

My work area now (tidied up quite significantly)	ATX power supplies need a small load in order to stay on, so a power resistor provides that. I guess I also could have replaced the power LED with a 12v light bulb	Green 'power switch' wire shorted to ground to keep the supply on	Unneeded wires removed
I'd have preferred to solder the wires to the binding posts, but they didn't take solder very well	The upper fan was originally mounted inside the case, but I moved it to the outside to make room for my wiring	Pretty decent power capacity	A benchtop power supply built from an old ATX computer power supply

2008-06-29: BullyBot

Stick 'em up	All put together	IR detector prototype -- this will be attached to the gun on BullyBot	IR emitter circuit prototype -- this will go on each of the other robots (the digicam sees the IR light from the LED, though in real life it's invisible)
All his bits are working (my work table is a little messy)	Underside of board, showing all the wiring. Maybe it's about time I start investigating printed circuit boards	Top side of board with the Pololu Low Voltage Serial Motor Controller removed	The "Output Module" (circuitry for all motors, servos, etc)
Space between the platforms to mount the Arduino and other circuit boards	The assembled base	Preparing the upper base - leftover aluminum drumsticks from Little Drum Machine become DIY standoffs	Bottom of lower base
Lower base assembled	Lotsa holes	It might be a good idea to add another servo on the right side just to add support	View from the other side
Gun mounted on the second servo to aim it left and right	The base of the robot. Those axles will need some support	Mounting the servo to aim the gun up and down	Removed parts
Useless parts Dremelled off	Extending the axles

2008-05-22: Nixie Clock

It works! (For some reason -- to save money, presumably -- Russian Nixie tubes use an upside-down '2' for the '5' digit)	Soldering in the Nixie tubes. Lots of soldering, lots of snipping	Five hours later, the rest of the components are installed on the logic board (2c)	Resistors and diodes soldered in - a good hour's work
Nixie tube closup, showing the layered digits	The six Nixie tubes, IN-14 tubes imported from Lithuania, where Nixie tubes were still produced and used until the late 80s	All the other bits	Enough resistors to choke a horse (if the horse fed on electricity)
Printed circuit boards for a Nixie tube-based clock (1c)

2008-04-23: Ambient Light Project

Thin sheets cut out of white styrene sit in front of the glass panes and act as diffusers	An Arduino for intelligence, and a 3 watt R/G/B LED can produce 16 million colors	Power jack on the back
Glows different colors, connected wirelessly to computer upstairs so it can receive information about the weather, etc and vary its color in response (2c)	The 'intelligent' ambient light project

2008-04-07: Little Drum Machine

Which means I don't need that motor driver PCB I spent so much thought and effort soldering up. Ah well	I put his head on a servo because that zippy little pager motor just wasn't precise enough	Underside. I moved the microphone away from the "bass drum" motor because it was picking up the whining of the motor louder than the drumming itself	Rear view. Ahh, isn't that so much cleaner?
Sampling board on the left (hot glue makes it so easy to mount things)	The final robot. Motor driver on the right side	This helped a lot -- glued small plastic tabs to limit the rotation of the head	My sketched-out plan for the circuitry. Just like the motor driver PCB, it took some clever arrangement to lay everything out efficiently
Fits right onto the microcontroller board	Six hours of soldering, phew	The completed PCB. So much neater	That's a mess
Here's the final messy circuit, just before I recreate it on a PCB using a hard disk ribbon cable to keep things neater	Underside	Once the circuit is finalized, I'll probably solder it up on a PCB to eliminate that rat's nest	He's now almost completed, construction-wise
Reverse view	Bracket fabricated to mount the sonar "eyes" onto the motor	The solder side of the board (I need a finer tip for my soldering iron)	My first PCB -- a motor driver to turn the "head" back and forth
Now he can record his beats, play them back in a loop, and jam out along with them	I hacked a little sampling circuit board, removing the pushbuttons and soldering up wires so the robot can trigger the record and playback functions	Bass drum motor detail	"Bass drum" mounted
Rear view. All those long cables will be trimmed down once I know exactly where I'm actually mounting everything	Some revision of the circuitry mounting, and he's got a little drumstick to bash on things now	Rear view	Main body glued together
Clear as day, eh?	One of the tiny pager motors, geared down and hot-glued to a "drumstick"	The breadboarded circuit. The small blue board is a motor controller for the two tank tread motors, the three transistors to the right of it will each control one of the three "drumsticks", and the green wire towards the top is for the LCD	The underside
The base of the robot

2008-03-31: Harry the Discbot

Testing is made a lot easier with a speaker (ripped from an old 486 PC) to play beeps and boops, but with nowhere to mount it, I just have to carry it behind him like a wedding train	Harry disassembled. The 4 rechargeable AAs provide (4 x 1.2v) 4.8v for the motors, while the sonar and microprocessor are powered by the 9V battery on the top level	Front view	Rear view. CDs conveniently provide a hole in the middle for routing wires between levels
When all you have is a soldering iron, everything looks like a circuit	That's one way to attach a foam model airplane tire to a servo control horn	The majority of the breadboard is taken up by just the two H-bridges (4 transistors each) for controlling the two motors. Aside from that, pin 6 controls the servo to position the sonar, and pin 2 interfaces with the sonar itself	Fabricating the bracket for the sonar sensor was probably the most difficult part of the whole project
Harry the Discbot

2008-03-16: Igor The Photovore

Igor's simple circuitry -- two parallel Miller engines, powered alternately one at a time from the large blue capacitor. The choice of which motor to spin is influenced by both the 'eyes' and the whiskers

Igor is powered only by the sun, so he's entirely self-sufficient. He seeks out his food source (with his awkward shuffling gait) whether you're watching or not

2008-03-01: Building Robots

Herpe is kind of an idiot so his circuitry probably won't progress past the breadboarding stage	Feivel meets Herpe, the curious-yet-skittish-puppybot	I call him Feivel	Eyestalks etc wired up, all done
Goood, goood	Backup switch glued and soldered in	Soldering the "crap I bumped into something, let me back up" part of the circuit	Battery taped in and relay glued in
Starting to solder up the circuit for real	That little black chip in the middle is the simple brain	Prototyping the circuit for a phototropic robot built from the parts of an old mouse

2008-02-28: Microcontrollers

The logic behind it is protty simple

(See?)

First project: a simple lightmeter

Finally learning to program microcontrollers