stelmobarry
USA
Asked
— Edited
Hello - I am mostly paralyzed from Lou Gehrig's disease and I won't be able to turn my Roli on or off to use it when I am home alone. My house is fully automated so I can be left alone for a few hours at a time. Is there a plan or a way to do this seemingly simple task? Robotics for the disabled is a largely untapped field. I performed a few searches but came up empty. Thank you in advance for your replies.
Sorry, my mistake about the power button. blush . Just watched JD's video about EZ-b power.
youtu.be/NilxwE9KV6I
Steve.
One Idea I have that I want to do with scraps is use a push on/off button and have a solenoid push it that will be plugged into a low power RF remote controller setup that way you could use some thing like a garage door remote to trigger it on and off
Why not just use the low power RF controller to short the connection of the switch or switch a relay? Adding in a solenoid to push a switch seems like over complicating things to me.
If you use a push on/off switch triggered by a solenoid it should use way less power
@ rich. That was what I was thinking for stelmobarry's bot. Simply bypass the power switch on the roli with something like the remote I supplied the link to, which should use very low power consumption. Would something like that work him?
Steve.
@wolfy, Are you sure about that?
A MOSFET based switching circuit to simulate a button push will used extremely little power. With the correct latching circuit for the power (i.e. a push on/push off type circuit similar to that of a PC power switch) the circuit will only require energising for a fraction of a second. A solenoid is effectively a motor, these are known for having very low efficiency. Not to mention the possibility of mechanical failure.
@steve, it should work. It's a circuit I've been wanting to get on to looking in to for some time now but never had the chance to do so.
A relay or transistor will draw constant power when the bot is powered up A solenoid only uses power for a moment and the controller will only use a tiny amount of power when on standby plus relays can cause other problems like power spikes though the ez-b
At worst it would draw minimal power while the robot is on and no power while off. Yes you would need a latching circuit rather than a mechanically latching switch but the current draw of that would be barely noticeable and it would eliminate any possible mechanical failings, not to mention would look a whole lot better (i.e. it would be invisible or totally hidden while leaving the push switch accessible for manual operation)