Has anyone made a wireless charger yet. use / charge / use / charge is getting a little tiresome and it is just my first week with ez-b.
Logic is JD Humanoid (or your build of choice) looks around when battery is flat finds a Glyph (that points in direction to head) and then goes to the home Glyph and parks with coil on breast plate and wireless charges. Seems to be some rough instructables to make a wireless chargers and some pseudo professional solutions element 14 wireless
I am not sure if anyone has built something like this , logic was a script that continually does a getVoltage() and then looks around for Glyph and returns home to charge when low. EZ-B continues to monitor until each cell of the LiPo reaches optimum level and when charged heads off to play again.
I think I remember this brought up in the forum a couple years ago or more. Unless the technology has changed I think the issue was the time it takes to charge a battery as this is an inefficient method vs direct connection. Edit: I'm speaking of free roaming robots which tend to have larger batteries to charge.
Plus how would the wireless charger know when to stop charging so as to not overcharge a lipo battery... Over charging a lipo is a bad thing... However, maybe (as Troy mentioned) since it charges slowly it "may" be safe?
@Richard R, as he describes it, the robot can monitor the battery level and back away from the charge plate when its done charging.
@Troy, DJ is adamant that the robots should be turned off (when using LiPo's) while being charged, so a different method of determining the charge is complete and turning the robot back on wold be required (this is not the case with Lead Acid batteries or NiMH. A lot of discussion over the years about developing self finding charging docs, but other than those who use Roomba's as a base which have the capability built in, I am not sure if any of us DIY'ers have actually implemented anything yet.
Personally, I am waiting for 2 potential upcoming EZ-B products, the Lidar, and the navigation system using a fixed position camera so that I can solve the autonomous navigation issues first. Then I'll tackle self charging (assuming my job slows down when my current project that is taking all my time wraps up in January as I expect. I have had virtually no time for robots all year. I haven't even opened the box of HDD servos I bought months ago....).
Alan
@Alan, that makes sense on the lipos of course. I didnt think of that.
New products? I will have to search for mentions on it.
The Lidar came up in a totally unrelated thread but DJ posted a picture of the work in progress. Can't find it now of course. Was within the past month.
There was more discussion of the fixed mount navigation camera, which I also can't seem to find (searching from the phone is tricky). This was a few months ago.
As with any of these works in progress that DJ mentions, it could be weeks or years before we see product, and some get canceled for various reasons, but it is fun to speculate.
Here's info about the IPS: https://synthiam.com/Tutorials/Help.aspx?id=230
Conversations are happening about the product launch. I'm trying to move a budget around to get the DIY components on the assembly line. It'll happen - it's just tough because Revolution is the money maker and that makes it difficult to convince the people who handle the money
Understanding that advancing the technology starts with the DIY users and products, which trickles down to revolution. Wheels are in motion... stay tuned
I had been considering putting a crowd fund together to manufacturer the diy items - but that might result in disappointing results because the diy community is so small these days
DJ, I’ve noticed that other established companies such as the UpBoard maker have successfully used crowd funding for new products
I really appreciate your support for the DIY community
Frank