First Real Look At My Ez-b Controlled Full Size Lis B9 Robot

It's been a long time sense I've done an update on my build. I've been busy refitting B9 with many upgrades. I've received 3 new V4 EZB's about a month or more ago and I was off to work replacing my V3's.

I also took this opportunity to do a few other upgrades. Biggest of these are replacing the L298n motor controllers that moved my radar and waist sections with my Sabertooth 2x12 motor controllers and a daughter board made by the same company (Dimension Engineering) called a Kangaroo X2. The Kangaroo X2 is able to give the Sabertooth both position and speed control turning my DC motor into a giant servo. I had a lot of challenges learning how to set this all up but in the end it's really pretty easy and it was only my own ignorance that made it hard. Here are a couple links to other threads showing how I over come my problems to make this work:

Turning Off A Sabertooth

Notes On Kangaroo X2

I still have a few tweaks to do on how they operate but for now they're working well. Later, with scripting help from a more knowledgeable member I'll BA able to add position feedback from the Kangaroo to the V4 EZB through the UART port of the V4 EZB.

I also had a few challenges in installing the V4 EZB's. Most notable was I had to get a new router because my older one would loose my EZB's IP addresses when powered down overnight. Here are a few links to other threads where I worked through these issues with the forum members and EZ Robot's support team:

Peaking Under The Hood Of My V4 Ezb

V4 Two Way Serial Communication - Where Do I Connect To Read?

V4 - "my Batteries Are Low, My Batteries Are Low"

V4 - Chimes, Voices And Sounds

Connecting To Two V4 Ezb's

Power In - Power Out On The V4 Ezb

Breaking Out The Sound From The V4 Ezb

Here's a vid I made from the above link "Breaking out the sound:

OK, Here's a few pics of the refit in the neck part of B9 (Lower pics to follow later):

"Before" picture of the old L298n motor controller in B9's neck before the Sabertooth install. I already have the new V4 EZB installed. You can see the buck voltage regulator that adjusts the main robot power down from 12vdc to 6.9vdc that supplies power to the EZB v4. This means that the output voltage of the Digital I/O pins will be the same voltage. After doing some figuring I concluded that the equipment powered directly through EZB will tolerate this voltage.

Here are the upgrade pictures:

Here you can see the Sabertooth with the little Kangaroo X2 sticking out of the right side. I love this little daughter board. It's simple to uses and set up and very powerful, smooth and precise. It actually adjusts the power feed to give a boost or buck when it "feels" a change in resistance!, The little brown homemade board sitting in front is a high side switch that lets EZB turn on and off the Sabertooth when B9 is powered down. See the link above "Turning off a Sabertooth" that explains this. Without it the dump battery keeps the Sabertooth powered up after I turn off the robot.

The little homemade board in front is a TIP120 switch that lets EZB turn on and off the ear sensors powered through a external 12vdc power source. The one in the rear controls the different light and speed patterns for his chest lights.

Here's the v4 EZB. That little brown board on the side is how I'm breaking out the sound into my main Sound system amp and speaker. See the link above on how I did this.

Tricking out the Bot

Enjoy! Thanks for looking! More to follow. Dave

Quite a thorough post you did there. Well done! It's been a pleasure seeing your B9 progress. Again, well done and thanks for sharing it.

Thanks @Troy. Just trying to bring most everything important on my build into one place. My posts about progress and issue solving on this build have gotten a little scattered in other threads.

I really am glad I've switched over to the Sabertooth 2x12 / Kangaroo x2 combo boards. They are so smooth and strong and add a level of control I really like. With the Kangaroo attached it also adds a fail-safe feature that if it senses a runaway, stall or other voltage problem it tries real hard to shut down. It's actually happened a couple times for me already and may have saved my butt.

I should have bought that Sabertooth 5 amp RC version. Its the same price as the 2.5 amp pololu one I bought a while back and gives me room to upgrade in the future.

As always, fantastic work Dave!

Looks like your V4 is working out very well. B9 deserves the very best!

Thanks guys! Your right, he does deserve the best!

Well, I've been working at it for hours and there's no way I can fit the V4 into B9's brain. It's just too high. Uncased, sitting naked and with servo cables plugged in, it's a whole 3/8th"higher than the V3. This might as well be a mile as now the lid of the brain sits almost 1/2" above the ledge Now I'm going to have to run about 5 feet of servo cable through a bobing and rotating section to get to the nearest ezb. Good thing I only need to run 3 cables. I'm considering fitting one of my old V3 ezb's with WiFi because I know that will fit.

Dave, I imagine you have seen this - but it's new to me Lost In Space Series