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Canada
Asked — Edited

Rad Robot

Happy to report that my EZ b and H bridge motor controller came in and is working. I have already figured out much of how to get the old Rad robot base tank to work ...and with audio,Doing the audio hack tonight as well so hopefully won't take too long to build,going to use my brother's Terminator Zombie body as it was made very light as a Halloween prop Full size,going to scare the crap out of all the trick or treat kids next Halloween,LOL!
:D


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Canada
#1  
So i spent the night connecting H bridge to Rad base motors and I just got the left motor seeming to work like it should but not getting any motion from the right side motor, i followed the tutorial from Rich and noticed he wired it differently than the official tutorial (wires connecting at d0,d1,d3...) i followed Rich at putting wires in front of EZ b (d12,d13,d14...)also noticed no power light on h bridge if I follow this statement.....1) Connect L298 VCC to either your battery supply positive or EZ-B power (red) on pin D0
2) Connect L298 GND to either your battery supply positive or EZ-B power (gnd) on pin D0?
should the L298 be on the negative of battery as that is the only way I get it working at all, if i attach the L298 ground on to positive battery terminal,nothing comes on L298,no red light so was that a typing error?i will also double check if my right side motor wires are connecting properly. *confused*
Canada
#2  
ah okay, i figured it out,both motors work now, I had the wrong control h bridge window in the software I was using the second one but now changed to the first one with out pWM so now I have no speed control but both motors work,so there is still a problem if the H bridge PWM wont work,my wiring must be wrong for the speed control. Real learning curve but it's fun at least!
Canada
#3  
okay,better now ,I just had to map the ports in the correct order and seems perfect now with speed control,only thing that confused me now was the left arrow means forward ,right arrow backwards,up arrow turn and down arrow opposite turn,I think I can live with that!:P So just one quicky question, I did not remove any original wires ,only soldered new wires onto the original motors and they are still connected to radio control board,hoping to use both systems for more precise control for when I use my Android phone as a wireless IP camera that I can watch robot video on my Laptop or Blackberry Tablet at remote location when investigating paranormal basements and creepy grave yards LOL! The original radio control range was impressive ,so keeping that old system along with the Wi-fi upgrade is just bonus. now what happens if I am plugging in the original Rad 6 volt battery and using the newer NI-CD 7.2 1500 mAH rechargable battery at the same time? should I not try that or would it give me longer battery power? Not really sure if it would be in series or parallel power.I guess I could add a relay switch for when one dies the other battery takes over when running low.
Canada
#4  
now for the Audio part, I got the basic speech synthesizer running and it can say "Hello Human" in both my Laptop or the EZ B controller speaker.I have the way cooler Larson Cylon Vocoder app on my Laptop that does real time Cylon voice by either microphone or any audio coming in from internet radio,news tv or wave/MP3's,just wondering how to use it with transmitting text to speech synthesis filtered through Cylon vocoder on Laptop first and then beaming it WI-FI to robot speakers? *eek* *sick*:D
Canada
#5  
I just did the Amplified speaker hack and wow what a difference it makes! Loud and all I am using is a free amplified usb rechargable Budweiser mini Amp speaker that came in last years Bud-beer 24 bottle cases.It is just a cube the exact same size as the EZ-B .The question I have is.... I spliced the mini jac wire from some old speaker I had lying around and it had 3 wires black,white and red so I only hooked up the red and black as I was un sure if the EZ-B sound is in stereo or mono?I am thinking my extra white wire may be the other side of stereo sound left or right and I may only be getting half the sound? Afraid to attach white wire from mini jac so not to blow the sound board in the EZ-B.Any idea what I mean? I could possibly get even better sound if I attach that white wire.So is the pre-amplified sound on the EZ-B in mono or stereo? I will check the forum to see other peoples speaker hack projects.....Edit....nevermind,I am guessing it is a Mono signal as their is only 1 speaker in the EZ-B so hooking the white and red together made no difference and it is still a loud quality deep bass sound so I do highly recommend doing this audio hack as long as you know how to make a couple good soldering connections to the board! Next I am putting all the wires neatly tucked in to Rad base compartment and deciding what to do for a new body,then ordering more sensors,yeahhh!
#6  
What a day you had! Nice job working through it all. I bet you're tired but happy.;)
Canada
#7  
Yes tired but well worth the effort, really excited to see how simple it can be to program any do it yourself robot using a Laptop with Windows 7 ! This Old Rad bot has new life now and I have another old Rad in the closet that has busted motors So I may end up getting another EZ-B for that one too! Only Instead of old motors I will re use the body and put it on top of one of those new China Aluminum heavy duty Robot tank bases.Make one that can boot through a field or go really fast over a dirt road, Will be a fun summer! Just have to add this, I took my Ricky sound files from the RS Media bot I have and added them to Rad-Bot. Ricky from The tv comedy Trailer Park boys! So you can imagine the profanity coming out of Rad-Bot ,Hahahaaaaaa! "Boys, it's not rocket appliance here"
Canada
#8  
Decided to just add a skull for the body to keep it lighter in weight and longer battery power,will paint it chrome like a Terminator head then I will have the head rotating with the missile motor for the sonar sensor,Just using Blackberry camera for now until I get smaller cam,kids outside love it but a little frightened at the same time.


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Canada
#9  
LOL! That motion touch map is so cool, Love making the robot do figure 8's or just donuts out in the parking lot,the rad has 2 gear systems,one for torque and the other for speeding around,let's see what else I discover in the EZ programs!:D
#10  
Really enjoying reading your discoveries. Just a hint, when you have a question, either make a seperate thread, or make a post with just the question. Some don't read long posts and notice questions in the middle of them. I think at this point you have answered your own questions from the first post, but if not, ask away....

Alan
Canada
#11  
Just one question,reading about a bumper sensor/switch I noticed a digital port can be used along with a resistor but what value of resitor would work good?
Canada
#13  
Sounds good,thanks Richard!
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