Now I have the EZ-B kit and the Hearoid it's time to start my Showcase thread.
I still haven't decided on a name for him yet, all suggestions are welcome.
I won this robot on ebay weeks ago, for the past 2 weeks he has been waiting for me to collect him...
Today was the day, a road trip to pick him up and bring him back to his new home...
In his new home (with Omnibot and Wall-e in the background totally unaware they are next in line to be opened up)
It wasn't long before this happened...
Now waiting to go in the dishwasher to get nice and clean.
The plan is to make him autonomous, running 24/7 (except for when he knows to go charge himself up) but will also be adding in the various image tracking options.
The only other slight modifications to be made to him are to convert the head to tilt & pan which will involve having to give him a small neck.
The head will include the camera. I haven't yet decided to fit it in one of his eyes or to make it his nose. The issue to overcome with this is the blue tint on the bubble head. The mouth will have a light or some lights in which flicker when he speaks.
The arms will be given some life with servos at the shoulder joints and the elbows provided I can get them to fit in there nicely.
Ultrasonic sensor will be in his chest, probably on a servo to give a wider view.
Original drive wheels and gearbox seem to be in very good shape so will plan to reuse those and just replace the existing motors for the modified servos if they can manage the task.
Speaker and microphone will be in the original positions - if it's not broke why fix it?
Not too big a project but enough to give me a test, help me learn and bring an old robot back to life.
Other robots from Synthiam community
J's My Hexapod Project
DJ's Myo Gesture Tutorial
If a LiPo goes under voltage charging them is dangerous and can cause fire and explosion, which is very well documented on the internet. Most good LiPo chargers have safety features in to prevent any potential problems.
My chargers, both the expensive all singing all dancing one and my cheapo one refuse to charge the LiPo. I had it on charge for 6 hours yesterday, when it started it was at ~4v, 6 hours later it was at 3.6v...
Charging as if it's an NiMh will bypass the safety features but can cause the battery to violently burst in to flames (check youtube, plenty of videos of that). If I do that I will not be doing it near my house I know that much.
YES mostly every li-po chargers have it built in,thats why is called CV puts outs a Constant Voltage and if goes over or under is shuts off and goes in trickle charge same with CC (constant current) is has a monitor circuit and they have a built in temperature monitor for shutdown
BUT there a few cheap LI-PO chargers that dont have this feature,NIMH chargers really dont have any monitors
WHAT model charger do you have
ANOTHER edit,i mostly make my own charging designs ,so i cant have any problems of over heating or fires
look at the NEATO XV-11 BATTERIES very well made NIMH types but with a temperature monitor plus CC monitor
I thing on you case you got some bad batteries or out of date
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another try on batteries is to zap it fast with a higher voltage,it may help
I think that's what they mean by charge it as if it's an NiMh. While it may help and may get it going again it's also the most dangerous thing you can do to a LiPo... before I even think about doing that I need some kind of fire proof container and do it outside away from my house, I'd hate to burn my house down all for the sake of a £25 battery...
But the 2 new ones are on their way and should be here tomorrow or Monday (depending on if the delivery service work Saturdays) and I may be able to get back to building the robot.
Rich I did the same thing and charged it as NIMH. The battery worked for a couple of charges then died. As long as the battery is outside in the dirt, away from combustable materials you should be fine. When they go bad they light up like a flare. I seen it first hand! Just charge it at a slow rate, check it every 5 minutes, then after the voltage gets back up there switch it back to lipo on the charger. If you see it start to puff standby!
Den
HOPE the new ones dont give you a problem so far i still lucky no problems with any type of my batteries,i have some robots use LI-PO and some using GEL CELLS and others using high current NIMH packs i made