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.

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

Update on Rover 5 project

Got some new wires, a "Helping Hand" and a 2A motor controller today. Which means I have the parts I need to get the Rover running on all 4 motors according to Robonor.no who recommended these two. I am going to need to get a some standoffs and screws to mount the Arduino and the two motor controllers. Here's some pic for today:

Rover5 with top plate mounted. I have no idea if i did this the right
way, but atleast it sits there. I have no idea how one are supposed to
get a servo motor in that hole, the battery pack is impossible to get
far enough down.

2A motor controller already hooked with the needed wires

Pan&tilt kit

Helping Hand, Comes prebuilt, very... handy..

Sortiment of screws and standoffs

Robot hobbyist laboratory

Heres's some pics of my new lab. Had to make a fitting space to build the robot !

Laptop dedicated to Arduino, with appropiate tools.
Multimeter, soldering, and about anything else need  to tinker!

Assembling Rover 5

Rover5 inside view, 6xAA battery pack and steppers

Arduino robot project

10/10/12

With the helpful guys at Robonor.no, I've ordered the following parts for my project:

Arrived in the mail today, UNO R3 from Robonor

• Sparkfun Inventor's Kit for Arduino
• Arduino Beginner Tool Kit Robonor (Soldering kit)
• Digital Multimeter Electrical Meter DT 9205A
• Battery pack - 4xAA
• Serial Enabled 16x2 LCD - Black on Green 5V

Dagu 4 motor controller is on it's way from England!

I will eventually get the Rover5 4-engined robot, but as the Dagu controller card is hard to get, I have to put this on hold for a while. At the moment, I will have enough to do by going trough the basics! When the Rover is in place, I will get an Mega ADK board for my Android phone to utilize all the sensors.



I have ordered the Dagu controller from the UK along with an IR compund eye from RoboSavvy. I'll slip right under the 20 pound tax limit! This could take a cool 2 months 4 weeks though. (Seems he could speed it up a bit!?

Meanwhile,I'll get to program the Arduino controller and hooking up the LCD display.
Fun times!

Serial Enabled 16x2 LCD - Black on Green 5V

11/10/12

Got an old laptop from a friend for fixing his new one and installing games and a 'safe' browsing environment. Not too bad either, Dual core AMD Turion with 2 gigs and 256 mb shared gfx memory. Will probably install XP in this to use all the easily available Arduino tools, and run Linux in a VM to run electronics software.

Postal service reports that the package has been received and will probably end up here tomorrow afternoon :)

13/10/12

Picked up package today, everything was included as far as I can tell, except the 3-pin serial LCD, but i actually got a much better LCD with a mounted backpack, so this should be a serious upgrade! Thanks Robonor! Quick delivery too!

Graphic LCD Serial Backpack

Serial Graphic LCD 128x64

First testing footage

From the Circ-02 tutorial with 8 leds

Well, cannot complain, everything worked as expected!

14/10/12

Some connectors was badly soldered from the factory. Fixed that and now it should work. Pixels was all over the screen.

Some error in the manual it seems. It won't work from the 5.5v line, have to use Vin. Here you can see the Sparkfun icon!

Some software I probably need:
http://www.atmel.com/tools/AVR32STUDIO2_6.aspx