subc
United Kingdom
Asked
— Edited
Inspired by this website and it's community I have just got hold of an old omnibot for my first attempt at creating an ez robot. As this is my first time I need some help and advice as to what I can and can't do and thought I would put my ideas to you guys and see what comes back.
My first idea is to remove the original drive and replace it with something like the rover 5, has anyone tried or achieved this?
Also I was wondering if there is anyway of controlling a tablet that is built into the omnibot via the ez-b?
I know this one is really out there but any thoughts on wireless charging or anyway of configuring it to charge itself when the battery is low?
Please excuse my ignorance and be kind
I haven't seen an Omnibot with a rover base but there is one robot that uses a similar idea that I'm aware of
Controlling the tablet via the EZ-B no but since the EZ-B needs connection to a PC you could control the tablet via other applications on the PC. It depends on what it is you want to do.
Wireless charging has been mentioned before, it's inefficient but possible. Also finding the charging station/base when low battery is a topic of much discussion.
Thanks for coming back to me, very helpful.
I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel so it looks like a good option would be to use a Roomba for the base, thus solving my drive and charging issues. Has anyone on here successfully achieved this? If so does anyone know which models of the Roomba are best for this and also quiet?
I actually quite like the idea of the Roomba vacuum functions as an added addition to my robot as well as the automatic charging. Would I need to keep the existing Roomba controls or would the ez-b be able to take care of all the existing functions?
Thank you for your advice, can the ez-b also control the vacuum functions? Has anyone successfully done this that can share a video or photos?
My main concern is noise with this base as I have watched a few youtube videos and they seem quite loud, can you upgrade the motors so they are more silent?
What's wrong with using the original Omnibot drive train? Hook the 2 motors up to a H-Bridge and it's a great drive train. It's still a little noisy but not as noisy as the RAD and can be soundproofed with Dynamat to make it quieter. It's fast and powerful too and saves any messing around.
Dynamat is a great idea but does it make much of a difference? Any other tips for taming that noisy drive?
Also will the original 6v battery be good enough to power the drive and the ez-b? Maybe I should use two batteries but would the original charge system still work?
I've not used dynamat on my robot yet but it has been mentioned that it makes a massive difference. If it's anything like when used in a car then it will make huge amounts of difference. Another thing to quieten it down would be to re-grease the gears.
As for the original charge system, I have no idea, none of my Omnibots not my Hearoid come with charger (I guess they go missing a lot). That's a reason why I upgraded to a LiPo (others included higher capacity, smaller size and lighter). If you parallel the batteries then probably yes but you will fill most of the Omnibot with batteries. A 6v SLA is about £7 from Toolstation, a LiPo is about £20-£25 from ebay. The space, ease of use and capacity is worth that extra £13-£18 in my opinion.