DFRobot Robot basis plates, Rover 5 mounting hacks

Adding stuff to your robot with 'nonstandard' parts.

'Builder Center - Metal Elements'

Updated 11-21-2012: Minor edits.

I've found that the Hoist sets (mentioned in earlier post) and  these ones are really useful for Arduino/DFrobot/Rover 5 units.

Some of the screws from these kits doesn't fit the basis plate, but all you have to do is to mount an angled bracket from the Hoist/BCME kits with standard DFrobot screws, and then build on the metal parts with the included Hoist/BCME screws. Just be sure that you have a bunch of standard DFRobot screw sets.

Just to give you an idea, an angled bracket (4-40) costs about a dollar at my retailer. This set includes 691 parts (not sure if it that includes the immense amount of screws and nuts as well) and costs about 35 bucks.  

But here are a huge load of beams, plates, brackets of different shapes and configurations. I was able to mount sensors, motors etc. with this kit. Go buy it, you wont regret! They have many different sets, this one with 691 parts are the biggest one they had.

I am not sure Meccano parts fit, they look like they do, but they also cost 4-6 times as much.

Click on images to enlarge!

- Professor Falken

That is a LOT of parts!

Trying out some parts on the back of the Rover

Dagu IR compound eye mounted using these kits.

Robots and Hoist kits ('Intelligent building toys series')

Robots and Hoist kits

 ('Intelligent Building Toys Series')

Updated 11-21-2012: Fixed some typos, some small edits.

This is their smallest kit (atleast in my store) and it costs around 10 bucks.
I bought this first, but I'm going to get their biggest set tomorrow. It has 650 piceces or so. The little one on the picture has 45 peces.

Losts of metal plates and brackets + some tools.
Some of the stuff does not 100% fit DFrobot stuff, but most do.
You will easily find a workaround if you encounter a problem.

Inckuded kit of screws, big and small. The big ones did not fit the
robot basis plate. Havent tried the Hoist screws with DFrobot
screws of standoffts yet, BUT Dfrobot screws and standoff fit with
all the metal parts!

Current revision of my Rover 5, nothing working still....
This revision is based on scavenged PC hardware still.
I will post new pictures as soon as the new mounting options are utilized.

Rover 5 with Dagu 4 motor controller

Controller does not fit rover holes and does not pass trough the
chassis standoffs on the Rover.

Good selection of standoffs, 4x of each type, plus screws and nuts.

Without card mounted

Card mounted under the servo

Encoder wires hooked up. Hope thats the right order!

Dagu Cur/Dir/PWM/GND pins trough an ABIT IDE cable rated 150V and 105 degrees.
Should hold!

Rover 5, mounting old PC parts as chassis

Some more Rover 5 updates! I dismounted some old PC gear and found some stuff I could incorporate.

2 servos mounted and working. (standard DFRobot Pan/Tilt Kit

Rewired the project for easier cable management and handling!

Added som more pushbuttons, which gives better flexibility
using menus

Currently using 4 buttons to operate the OS

Dismounted DVD drives and PC chassis parts are pretty useful now

Here mounted on the Rover 5

Back view

Rover 5 with pan-tilt kit,breadboard and 2 servos mounted

Some more pictures of mounting a pan tilt kit on a Rover 5.

The robot chassis base plate is on a 50 mm standoff to utilize the mounting holes for a servo instead of getting a second multi-purpose bracket. Saw this on a YouTube vid. Follow the "0.1 assembly guide" that comes with the kit (and is the only one produced) as far as you can get without fastening things much, then take a look here if you need. I had to google pretty hard to find some pictures and a short video snippet, but it's out there. The kit also does not come with enough screws to mount it this way. You are supposed to get an extra MP-bracket, they come with the screws too.

HERE is the images I can find. The ones you can see on this page are my own.

These are not mentioned in the assembly instructions
and many people seek help for this kit, but it's supposedly
agreed on that this is how you do it.

Then, on the multi+bracket, put them in like this.
This will fit quite nicely. Not so much with the U-bracket.

Make sure you don't fasten the center screw until the
servo is centered. Then you can take it off, and re-position it.
Here you can also see the positions for mounting
the Arduino base plate (here with Mega ADK and breadboard)

Make sure then, that you can twist it as much as you want in each direction

Try it out. When assembling, keep using two screws to
test out that you can rotate (slowly!) the servos
The standard servos goes up to about 150 degrees
from the data sheet, but mine almost does 170 or so it seems.

Then fasten center screw

I found that there are two holes drilled in the base plate and they
actually fit quite nicely on the Rover like this.
I found some slightly thinner stand-offs from a
computer with long screw length and short stand-off length
that went nicely trough the holes after trying first with
thinner screws. (the pointy ones, I just randomly picked it from
an old computer as well)

Before the camera was out of power, I didn't get to
take a picture of how i stabilized it completely. I'll post that later. There was
a hole quite far to the left that I put in an M3 standoff with a screw
in and put on the nut. It then just sled into the outer ridge under the
breadboard. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be done this way
but it worked well for me.

Two 9V batteries, supposed to be taped in here
on opposite side of the breadboard to counter weight.
The 6xAA battery pack also helps putting
center of weight down a bit.