RichiesRC
Hi Everyone,
I'm Richard(Rich) and my daughter is Phoebe
That's right myself and my daughter are building a scale Wall-e from scratch, after she got the old movie for Christmas, she has become totally Wall-e mad and after just a few days she asked me if could build her a Wall-e robot as she thought the plastic models were "boring" and after seeing a few hand made Wall-e's on the internet she asked me if I could build her one. Anyway I didn't jump straight away because you know what kids are like, they can get disinterested in things pretty quickly but not Phoebe(my 9 year old daughter) after building her own cardboard Wall-e and fully equiped Wall-e house with many of his toys and gagets. After several weeks and the DVD just about constently running we have started the build. The first thing to get was the tracks so I could scale him arround them. Picked up a set of Matrics about 170mm long off eBay which arrived about a week ago and after quite a bit of mods to them the carcase is well on its way. Originaly Wall-e was just going to be radio controled as that is my pasoin and I've been playing with everything RC since my early teens.
Phoebe was checking out some youtube videos and came accross D.J Sures video on his Robot Wall-e and said "dad you have to have a look at what this Wall-e can do", so I did and I was sold straight away as some of the other robot hardware out there needs some special programing skills. So we are ready to buy the EZ Robot System but would like to know a couple of things so I know what other hardware we might need.
Will I need a seperate LED controler as we plain on having the front Solar Charge Level panel lit up in rows and each row will be timmed some how to turn off after x amount of time.(Did read that I could hook them up to the digital outputs but there are 7 channels .and will probably need as many of them just to drive servos etc
You see a 9 year old finds things that we might not find that important like us adults,few examples: The solar power front panel has to work and look just like the real Wall-e's one, The play, Record and Stop buttons on the top have to work, He has to have a lazer comming from his head(lazer pionter mounted inside his head), She has even downloaded the sound track to Wall-e's favorite movie and today she started cutting parts of that out of the mp3 to be able to use on Wall-e, She would have loved him to be able to actualy compact trash(that one I've said is just about imposible due to the size of him). And he must be able to pick up things(well try at least) and he must be able to put his hands together(looking forward to that chalange). Looking at micro Linear Actuators but these are quite expensive. His hands will be controled by a thin flex pushrod cable to his thumb and his other fingers will be fixed. The linear actuator for his arm that I'm looking at should be able to spin/twist with the use of a micro servo to give him some wrist movement.
I am normaly a big advocate of the KISS system, even have that painted large on the workshop wall....So much for KISS this time...lol
Ok Wall-e is made from mostly 3mm MDF with his base and a couple of other small parts from 12mm, 12mm because I can screw to it easly(great for mountin servos, motors etc with out having to use small bolts and nuts not to mention how well it paints up. So we are ready for the EZ Robot controler and I tested the 2.4ghz pinhole usb cam today and it works a treat(got that ages ago to mount on my RC models but it's no good as it interfears with my 2.4ghz raido gear)
I will post a couple of pics so you can see what we are up to and to give a bit of look at how we are going with Wall-e.
Looks like my nitro heli is being put on hold for a while untill Wall-e is compleated.
Thanks and G'day from Rich & Phoebe
@JT I still have not herd back from the eBay seller and might contact him again as he probably had no clue was I was asking as some(many) of the Chinese sellers do have trouble understanding us, even when you try to keep it simple, I did send a couple of drawings to him to help but maybe he just thought the whole email was some kind of spam.
I now see how the panel on that other Wall-e works but seems to be a lot of work/money just for a battery Indicator but great idea, Walll-e could even play his favourite movie on it.
I'll quickly tell you how my panel will work. I'm having a vinyl sticker made up by my local sign writer of the panel in reverse image that will be stuck the back of a thin acrylic panel (all scratched up on the front side)and the led's/bar graph will be mounted behind that with small dividers to keep the light confined to it's area. I could even be operated by a micro servo (a shutter type of thing with the servo programmed to cycle extremely slow but don't think I will go that way.
Once again thanks to everyone for their input and help so far.
Rich
I've seen battery chargers that have led bar.level meter built in , you could install the board and remote mount the leds and replace them with all yellow LEDs
This is a smart charger , charges 12 or 6v it has indicator LEDs for charging and 25% 50% 75% 100% charge levels. Since all these are is LEDs you could solder up yellow bar LEDs. This could double as a build in battery charger too , maybe this is a option for you? You would need to attach a ground from batt and 12v or 6v pos to the dc side after the transformer converts household current to dc. Sounds complicated but its two wires.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Noco-Genius-G1100-Compact-Smart-Battery-Charger-6v-12v-RV-Trailer-/320789700748?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr&hash=item4ab08e608c
@jstarne1 Thanks good idea, will look into it. The only thing is that Wall-e' main power supply is a 3 cell 11.1 volt lipo and it must be charged on a balance charger but it could charge the the smaller NiMh pack but that ,if all goes right will be solar charged.
I read another post "How To Light An Led Strip" about using a separate power supply and switching transistor, as the drive servos(converted) are large and will probably draw quite a lot of current this sounds like the way to go with them but as I've said my electronics skills are limited, I'm fine if I have wiring diagrams and component lists or could i just use a switching BEC and just connect the signal wire to the EZ-Robot board? The rest of the servos will be fine on 5 volts.
Rich
Ohh will try and get some more done on Wall-e this weekend. finish his back and start to give him some detail. Will post more pics soon. Would have liked to have that done by now but have had to fix the real car(replace brakes and the power steering) I hate working on cars and there went the cash for the EZ, so will have to wait a week or 2 before I can purchase that
Phoebe is at her Mums this weekend so will be able to get stuck right in.(she lives with me full time and sees her Mum fortnightly, long story and not going there)
Rich
If I read it correctly the passive one will light up the display relative to the input voltage. So if you pump the full 5v in you get a full display, if you have 2.5V you get half a display etc... The Active one needs 5V supply and a reference input. I am ordering the passive one because I am lazy
There is a guide on here somewhere about fitting the LED to a DO to make it come on through the EZ-B, I am sure that DJ will have already put some kind of DO with a reference to the EZ-B supply voltage, if not, WHY NOT!
KISS, and you can't get much simpler than this!
regards
Darren
Nice work RichiesRC. Another Australian as well
Hi guys, Just found this LED indicator that is fully programmable and can be made with all yellow LED's and the seller got back to me straight away so I might go with this one, might have to mod it slightly but because it is going behind the vinyl sticker it will look like a bargraph anyway. And this one is truly plug n play.
Ebay link:
6v 12v 24v LED battery monitor level meter indicator
Ohh and thanks Creativita. and thanks for the info on the Active and passive bargraph Djandco