Hey all. I was really excited when my EZ-B arrived about a week ago. While it was on its way I was searching around for my first project. Thanks to DJ's great website and Ebay I found what I wanted. I picked up a RAD 2.0 for 15 bucks. It did not have any remote or battery charger (so what). And today I started on it! I hope to post my progress here and open to any ideas you all might have. As you can see I wasted no time before I opened it up!
The RAD 2.0 has what looks like a decent track base with motors and gear boxes (a bit loud when I tried out the motors). It has a physical gearbox selector switch for High and Low gearing (I will need to put a servo on that) which will be cool to mess with. The interesting thing about this guy is that he bends at the waist. He also has two arms that work together to grasp an object. It looks like can bend all the way over and pick up an object on the floor (we shall see). After opening it up I noticed it appears to be a decent thing to start modding.
I have an H bridge on the way for the track motors and I probably going to need another if I want to use the existing motors that control the waist and arm movements. I am thinking of putting in a accelerometer as well so when the bot goes up or down hills it could stabilize itself automatically! It will surely have a distance sensor...just not sure where to put it yet, camera, and probably go with an MP3 trigger. You may notice the circle on his chest...The original toy was remote control and could fire nerflike darts (pretty neat). Not sure I will keep that functionality as I am thinking of other cool gadgets to hook up to him. Tonight I tackled the head movement.....I will post more on that later.....
Kevin
Other robots from Synthiam community
Robotdude's Lieutenant Commander Data
DJ's Jd's Friday The 13Th
Geez, sorry all....I fixed it....thanks DJ
kkeast;
That is great work!
I too am working with a RAD 2.0 base. (and just received my EZ-B Kit!!!)
How did you hook up the qik controller from the Arms and Waist to the EZ-B?
Thanx:)
@RR33,
Since it is serial I hooked it up to one digital port for basic operation:
+5 EZB to Vcc on pik GND EZB to GND on pik Signal EZB to RX on pik Motor Supply voltage (battery) to VMOT on pik Motor supply GND to GND on pik
Motors 1 and 2 hooked up to -M1+ and -M2+
I like that the pik has automatic buad detection..supports up to 38.4kbps
I don't use the other control wires.
I used what the manual calls the 'compact' protocol to send commands. The manual is pretty good and has some examples.....let me know and I can post the commands I used for the motors.
Looking forward to your progress on your RAD 2.0 base.....!
v/r
Kevin
Thanx kkeast!
I'm going to order the same pik. (and H-Bridge) You used. Please post the commands for the motors...thanx so much!:) Rob
I ordered the same H-Bridge and Pik. Thanx for the help!:)
Hey Kevin , I did dynamat sound deadening and wow what a difference , the motors make like 1/5 the noise , just a small humm. I've heard "peel and seal" which is 15 bucks for a 25 foot roll at lowest. I used name brand dynamat from eBay that costs about the same. Here's some pics I had on my phone. It's definitely worth it!
Covering the inside walls of base and outside of gearbox did the trick , now it sounds high tech with a little hum instead of a plastic loud toy.
@jstarne1,
That sounds awesome and 'quiet' too! Just what I need! Thanks for the pics and info!
@RR333,
I will post my scripts for the pik soon.
v/r
Kevin
@RR333,
Here are the scripts (commands) for my arm and waist motors: I installed an accelerometer attached to ADC0 so i know when to 'stop' the waist motors (when going up and down) so you don't get the plastic popping of the gears. I still don't have a good solution to keep the arms from 'popping' when they close or open too much. Hope this helps and your pik is working out!
v/r
kevin
Arms Open Script sendserial(d4,19200,0xAA) sendserial(d4,19200,0x88,0x7F) sleep(1000) sendserial(d4,19200,0x88,0x00)
Arms Close Script sendserial(d4,19200,0xAA) sendserial(d4,19200,0x8A,0x7F) sleep(1000) sendserial(d4,19200,0x8A,0x00)
Waist Down Script: sendserial(d4,19200,0xAA) if (ADC (ADC0) > 125) goto(end) sendserial(d4,19200,0x8E,0x7F) sleep(1000) sendserial(d4,19200,0x8E,0x00) :end sendserial(d4,19200,0x8E,0x00)
Waist Up Script: sendserial(d4,19200,0xAA) if(ADC(ADC0 < 79) goto (end) sendserial(d4,19200,0x8C,0x7F) sleep(1000) sendserial(d4,19200,0x8C,0x00) :end sendserial(d4,19200,0x8c,0x00)