I should probably start using this log, so to catch up...

All the components are pretty much either in hand or on order waiting for delivery. There are a couple of parts like motherboard mounts that I'm going to use to mount parts to the perspex that most of the electronics will be on. Once I do that Ill be able to hook up most of the parts & start messing with code.

Power

I decided on the 2x 16Ah batteries from HobbyKing yesterday. They were marked down so there is some savings there but I needed cables for the hookups and a charger so the power still ended up being just about the most expensive part so far.

I am also a little paranoid about the batteries overheating/catching fire/go boom so I splurged on some save charging containers which only add 500g each. Hopefully I will just keep the batteries in those holders and I can remove them from K9 as a unit when I need to charge.

Ive also gone with 2 in parallel because it should definitely be enough for one day of heavy use but also means I have the option of changing over batteries on the fly (but will likely just go both for now til I know what consumption is like).

Controller

I am just waiting on a on/off push button switch for the controller before I can hook that together but I have decided instead of using the smb switches on hand cut board + soldering Im going to look at getting a custom pcb made. Ive added the gerber files to the project & expect the quote on monday to get the thing made.

I do need to figure out what im communication schema is going to be across the xbees but mostly my plan is to have the controller as dumb and just broadcast. I was going to have it set to only broadcast to K9 but I may want to use the same controller on other robots later. The point being the code for the controller will be pretty simple and the only complexity I might add is only broadcast the 9DOF data if paired.

Outer Shell/Frame

After getting all the wheels and looking at the prop shell we have the incline of the sides is a little too steep so we need to adjust that. This is annoying that we have to basically make the frame around the requirements of the shell (as we modify it). However, found someone who can do some laser cutting of the parts which will hurry that along so can get to a stage with the motors & ultrasonics mounted to get that working.


Ok that's it... Ill try to do better updates now I know there is a log here.