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