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Thursday, October 7, 2010

Booster circuitry up and running

Running digital equipment has the drawback of requiring tight voltage ranges in order to operate. In the case of my robot, I had the need for powering the Fonera 2100 from a pack of 4 AA batteries. While the batteries can deliver 4.8 Volts once fully charged (which is barely sufficient to power this wireless appliance directly), once the voltage drops further, the Fonera ceasses to operate. In this situation the batteries still have remaining energy that is not possible to use.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Drastic Improvement: new Mobile Platform

After a lot of stress tests with the original platform, it was time for something better. The original platform was no more than a toy RC car (entirely made of plastic) with some hobby RC parts on top of if, such as refurbished steering system (with a real servo) and a home made ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) for the original toy car motor. During a demonstration with my 4 year old nephew, showing him how fast the roving robot would go in an open area, suddenly something happened: it started running full speed, totally out of control, both forward and backward (in my mind I immediately tought one of the ESC FET's had fried). I rushed to grab it, and suddenly smoke started coming out of the motor. Worried about the LiPo battery, with the motor still running and smoking, I centered all effort in disconnecting the battery. My nephew started to cry with the stange situation. After making sure no fire would occur, I had a confused infant to comfort.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Power pack!

While the rear wheel traction motor provides plenty of power for normal operation, the curiosity of obtaining some extra power through a different propulsion method is appealing. Since I had some parts from a unfinished airplane project, the materialization of another exclusive idea became real: to build a special trailer for the car, with a single purpose - to push the car even faster, with the help of a propeller instead of traction wheels. Featuring a 9x6E propeller, a 150 Watt brushless motor, an 18 A ESC, and a 1300 mAh LiPo battery, this trailer provides the closest one can ever get from raw rocket power, with controller propulsion.