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Servo bits, ankle concept & DevRemote

A project log for Droidbot 07 - Wheeled-Quadruped

An ambitious mobile robot for testing my skills and learning new ones.

paul-crouchPaul Crouch 08/07/2017 at 15:210 Comments

It's been a while so I thought I'd post a quick something...

Mounts and arms available on Thingiverse.

A while ago I created some parts for the heavy duty standard sized servos that I'm planning to use in the bot's "head" mechanism. They nothing fancy, but they're available on Thingiverse:

  1. Vertical servo mount.
  2. 50mm heavy-duty servo arm.

I have six servos arranged around the head to provide the pitch and roll that I want (to keep head/sensors level as the body moves around) in addition to be able to raise and lower a little bit. It is effectively a Stewart Platform but I don't need yaw or horizontal translations so it should make the maths a little bit easier. The head spin motor and index sensors are function but the control code could do with some further love.

Still early days.

I have also been thinking about the legs, specifically how to mount and actuate the wheel/foot/ankle. I'm thinking of using the BLDC hub motors of "hoverboards". Though the name irritates me their motors/wheels seem well suited to my requirements. I modelled how I could actuate a foot but quickly realised it'll need more thought. The flawed concept is shown below.

Flawed concept.

Also, I'm currently printing an enclosure for a development remote; a battery powered platform with a 20x4 LCD and 3-axis joystick and some buttons, linked via Bluetooth. Intended as a tool to help early debug and give me a flexible terminal for simple display and control. Had to split the main body in order to fit it on the build platform of my printer.

W.I.P.

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