@odt, It is difficult to find something that runs directly off of 12V. What a lot of peopke have done was to get a small laptop or notebook. It will run off of its own battery for a while. To keep it charged, you could buy something like this Being from Europe, you might have to find the European equivalent.

I Just had an onboard computer made for my robot. It is this motherboard. I had to get a processor put into it, and an SSD drive, and buy a power supply. That will all have to be run from a converter, but I am told that it will use very little power overall. I know that you specifically asked fo "assembled" though.

You may want to look at the shop at mp3car.com or their forums for some ideas. Not cheap, particularly since you need to add a monitor of some kind (they also do sell small touch screen monitors), but they are designed specfically for 12v operations.

They also have 12 volt power supplies with low voltage cut-off that can be used with most motherboards.

store.mp3car.com/Car_Computer_Systems_s/409.htm

Alan

Thank you very much for your replies.

I am doing some experiments and i am beginning to think the problem is the camera...... With a new "Microsoft" camera, everything goes well only at first "startup". After, it does not. With a very very old "Logitech" camera, everything goes always well.

Obviously, the new Microsoft camera is better than the old.........

I don't know why i have this problem, maybe it is a "resolution" fact........ I will continue to try some experiments with my little 12v pc and these two cameras.

I am working building this robot for more than one year....... it is a very difficult thing to make it 'start running'.......

Scuse me, Danger, but how do it is the power-comsumption of your robot? How do you power the robot?

My little 12v pc, is a max 25W power consumption and with 3 Lead Acid Batery, it can go on about5 hours. How do perform your robot and what kind of battery do you have?

....little error i have written......

My little 12vpc comsumption is 16 Watts in boot startup process and average comsumption is 13 Watts during high process. This is the specs: http://cocoontech.com/forums/page/articles/_/reviews/home-automation-reviews/hometroller-series-2-r137

What do you think about? I am trying to build a robot controlling Ezboard from Visual basic.

I am working very hard on this robot from more than one year...... and now that i have powered on it for the first time, i have this bad problem........... Maybe i did everything wrong from starting?........ i think yes...........

@odt My robot is quite large. He will have a lot of motors and use a lot of power. I have two marine batteries for him.
I will be using a converter similar to this one to run the computer, 110volt speakers, etc.

@odt Someone else could probably answer you better as to whether or not that PC will run EZ-B or not. I am not an expert in computers at all. Don't get discouraged though. If you have to you could probably get a little used Acer Aspire or something like that. I had one that worked fairly well with EZ-B before I bought the Mini ITX.

And incidentally, my experience with robotics is that nothing works as planned the first time you turn it on. You just have you keep working at it until you get it right.

If you really want a pc check out in car computers. There built to run of 12v and low amperage.

www.mini-box.com/Car-PC-Automotive-Computing-Solutions

aameralis, Did you mean Acer W3? After looking for your suggestion I see the A3 is an Android tablet. The W3 seems to be Acer's Windows based tablet. Lowest I could find it is $249.

@dave, Here is one slightly cheaper at $239 and free shipping.

Well, after some experiments, i see some troubles, but i can solve them.

The problems are usualy a "Windows mistery"........ If my pc starts and runs VisualBasic for the first time, everything goes well. If i stop VisualBasic and run it again, Camera does not works, but if i restart system, everything is ok again. If i connect an old camera (Logitech Quickcam express bought in 1994) everything is ok all the times.

I don't know why, but i have 2 options. Surely, newest camera is better than the oldest, so i will go on with this.

The little 12vpc, can run visual basic with this camera at now. I must be very carefull programming it in order to not spending too much resources.

Hardware seems to be ok at today. I will let you know going on.........

P.s. Scuse me for my bad english...

FOR "DANGER":

Doyou have a link showing your robot specs?

How do it is wheigt? What kind of motors do you have mounted? How do you recharge batteries?

Thank you.

Ema from Italy

@odt, Here is a link to the thread that I started for my robot. I do not have many real specs for him. It is a copy of a robot that was on an old television program. Dave, and several others in this group are building copies of the same one. Dave's is much farther along than mine. His is actually coming out a lot better too.

I am not a real robot builder. I am making things up as I go along. I can tell you this much. He will be about 2 Meters tall and about 140Kg when he is finished. To move him around, I have motors that came out of a scooter. I will be using a Sabertooth 2X60 controller to run them off of the EZ-B.

To move his arms, and other parts of his body, I bought a bunch of these motors . They are not installed yet, but I am experimenting with them. I have also collected other automotive motors and cordless drill motors.

To charge the batteries, I have an automobile battery charger.

He will have an onboard computer. It is a custom job that I had built. It is a mini ITX board, with an Intel i3=3240 processor (3040GHz) and a 120GB SSD.

Beyond that, I do not know what to tell you. It is still a work in progress. I have changed plans many times since I began, and will probably change them many times again before I am done.

Best of luck with your project though. If I can be of any assistance, just ask.

WOW!