Some of the Neato Lidar units are 5 vdc and some are 3.3vdc. You will need an additional circuit board to control the rpm of the Lidar unit and then a program that takes the output of the 360 degree scans and convert to a room shape or scan shape of an area.

500mA is a bit power heavy, The sharp IR sensors are only 40mA. You wouldn't want that running for long.

If it's serial it should be pretty simple to interface with ARC. Using the data on the other hand may be a little trickier.

MOSTLY THE CURRENT IS NEAR 350MA ,when i check it,LIDAR is my baby

here is one link,and i have a few more with post

lidar hacking

it has more info if you read the blogs ,but is shows a simple one chip speed controller ,super easy to build and motor RPM IS 300

There is a guy who sells a board with TTL CONVERTER and a speed controller very cheap plus anyone wants a board i can make the speed controller and calibrate it easy $5 plus shipping

I also sell the LIDAR on ebay and they sell fast

Will post a lot more info ,photos and a lot more in a few days

more about the LIDAR the accuracy is almost the same as a $1200 LIDAR the guy who hack it got about $700 FROM MAKERSHED,think it was about $400 and then another company added $300

Here is another hack with a lot more info and on the board you can buy

lidar hack site

there is a lady in france who i sold one while back who made a design on quadcopter using it and is finished

ROBOT-doC none i heard uses 3.3 volts that is what the motor uses

RICH ON the KINECT that everyone waiting on DJ to finish the interface for uses 1.6 amps at 12 volts and another 400ma at 5 volts for usb

ON sharp sensors at 40ma you need a few ,plus SONAR .on a camera looking at about i guess 200 ma

baud rate is 115k

another edit ,since i can go on for pages about the LIDAR Here is another LIDAR hack site github hacking lidar

There are two different circuits on the Lidar module used in the Neato. The dc motor that spins the Lidar assembly at 300 rpm is a 12vdc motor. The Lidar microprocessor that generates the output readings is either 3.3 vdc or 5 vdc depending on what model Neato the Lidar was installed into.

,info is on the second hack site

from the neato XV-11 is uses 12 volts like you said but to use only the lidar by its self it uses 3.3 volts for the motor look at the schematic it uses only usb at 5 volts ,no other power and a microprocessor to control the neato speed at 300 rpm and at the same time has ttl to usb input

it uses current not voltage to control the motor on there other hack site that uses a 555 timer to control the speed it uses 12 volts to control the motor

micro board was made by RINGO,I tried the site and so how its down

Actually the dc motor used to spin the Lidar is 16 vdc. The 300 rpm speed is pwm controlled and some run at 5vdc and some run at 3.3vdc. It seems the very early XV-11 models were 5vdc and later models used 3.3vdc

I created a board to interface the LIDAR sensor to a PC without the rest of the XV-11. The PCB consists of a PIC18F2221, and FTDI-232R, a 3.3V regulator, and a Fet for controlling the motor. The pic watches the data from the LIDAR and uses the speed information to control the PWM pin attached to the FET. In this way the correct speed can be maintained. The Firmware for the pic currently only supports the old LIDAR firmware ( that is what I have). Hopefully someone else can modify it to work with the other firmware as well. There are jumpers for configuring who talks to what between the PC, PIC, and LIDAR. There are also options for supplying your own 5V instead of getting it from USB and an option for using an XBEE for wireless communication. Schematics are posted below as well as the Eagle brd files. Source code for the PIC will be posted soon. I have spare boards for sale if anyone is interested. Ringo (dot) Davis (at) gmail (dot) com

check the second link there is the schematic near the bottom

I ASK if the neato can use a timer at 3.3 volts and it can with a few current changes instead of 12 volts and timer at 5 volts

YES that is right comming from neato xv-11 machine ,i have both the older models and newr models both use my board that RINGO MADE, it does not control by voltage it controls by how much current is need to get to 300 rpm

you can run the motor at 20 volts and still will work at 300rpm

a fet is a adjustable resistor depending how much drive turns it on ,it uses current to control the motor ,simple ohms law

FETS or mosfets are used a lot in controlling motor speed by the current

here is another circuit about the same using a fet and 55 timer and supply voltage can be 3 to 15 volts and still keep the motor at the same speed

fet controlled dc motor

idea that may work is to use the EZB since it has PWM to control a fet for the motor,but the frequency needs to be changes maybe,might look at it

RobotMaker it seems you can easily prototype the LIDAR hardware but the software is another animal all together... perhaps even more obscure...

What will you use to process / analyse the LIDAR results? Won't you have to use the SDK and Direct X/Processing for visualization? Then how will you pass the results up into ARC into a EZ-Script some sort movement/path finding decision framework?

I have a friend making a code in c # ,so far i have a python code that has a GUI showing tracking info

Someone good at making a EZ-SDK using c# should be easy ,API CODES are on the links i have up

he guy who hack it from what i remember he hook it up to a terminal program and was able to get the info

OR software expert like DJ should be able to do it easy if enouth of us guys ask him

Sorry about my grammar (i know it bad) i just write fast ,and more into designing going to miss my secretary not only she is pretty but does my writing for me

Trying to learn C++ ,but is hard,some tell me its easy but the also program in C++ and i bet when they started to learn it was hard too

You can't use the excsisting tech? Such as removing the part from the robot that communicates with the North Star, then have it respond to your robot? Or would that somehow being a lawsuit if this was ever found out.

That's what most hackers of the Neato do. They remove the Lidar unit from the robot and use the hardware as a standalone application.

Legally speaking it would not be an offence unless you used it for personal or monetary gain. It would be for personal use and therefore perfectly acceptable. If you were planning to use it for monetary gain you should also check the licence of ARC and the EZ-SDK as I believe it states that neither shall be used for commercial purposes without prior written concent, or words to that effect.

So in short, rip apart anything you own and use it however you wish provided it doesn't break any laws (like used to build a weapon type laws) and don't use it as part of a system you are going to sell.

mostly people dont use for montary gain on use on robots

ROBO-DOC not all do ,few use a cheato display controller in the neato xv-11 and tap in the serial port on board one of the links tell you how to do it. USING linux

need to find a way to print a image in COMMAND PROMPT ,i have GUI show full data on the LIDAR and distance .

soon as i have time today will post photos of the lidar on a pcb using only usb

I realise that some people don't use it for personal or monetary gain however a lot more than you'd think do. The definition of using for personal or monetary gain is quite complex. But that's not the issue, I was just letting whoever asked about the legal standpoint on it how the law would see it.

What do you mean by print an image in the command prompt? Are you talking Linux terminal, windows command prompt or something else entirely? And print an image as in display it on screen, output it to a display or print it as in output to a printer?

If you explain what you mean a little better I might be able to tell you what you want to know.

Then they cant get a patent on it,or get a chance to get sued,just like the big super design i sold to work they paid for a lawyer and the patent and paid me the money i want

I have a image on the command prompt screen and want to save it as a jpeg or bmp

Need to i guess hook up the neato lidar again ,may be to have more info,its a GUI

NICE to see you going to help its a good start,i try to help you but

Also how do you save on a windows screen as a jpg or bmp ,the print screen doesnt work that may work better

There is a program called "Greenshot" that you can download for free "personal use" that will let you capture any area size you want of the display screen and save the file as a JPEG.

Print screen should work. Press it then open paint, Press Ctrl & V (or edit - paste) and viola, image is pasted in to paint.

Alt & Print Screen does only the active window.

Works for me

Even works in Putty

OK thanks it works,never had a chance to use it any time in using a computer

go to know this now so when i need it for my designs

Cant wait to try it on the NEATO LIDAR tonight and post it, I know it will work perfect

Its been more then 15 years since i use photoshop CS5 or paint or any other editing software ,use to

Have so many of them,paintshop , corel and sold most of them,i do have a very good software add on to photoshop called GENUNE FRACTALS 2.0 looking to sell,its for making any size image bigger without losing any pixels infomation

I have a friend working on the code,so should be easy to add it to ezb -sdk with the help of a good programmer plus if anyone needs the interface board i can let you borrow it,need to email me off the forum second if you make the code you get 50% off the LIDAR

I think it will work very good for EZB

Photoshop CS5 was only released in April 2010 Come on, I can't go a whole day without correcting you on something

sorry your right PHOTOSHOP 5 ,I said it was awhile since i used it, I my sister mght have then or if there is a new one out,only uses uses MAC since college only uses the MAC and she told me its best computer for images,she just got her masters last year i think it took 7 years no shore if it correct,

here is my LIDAR and my board i have,so far only a few left ,but getting more stock in soon