DiddyBorg motor control

Submitted by AstroJohn on Mon, 11/17/2014 - 10:14

Forums:

Hi, I'm interested in the DiddyBorg. Can I ask a few questions?

1. Does the motor control board that ships with the kit offer fine motor speed control. FWD and REV?
2. Can the diablo be used as an upgraded motor controller?

That's it!

Cheers
John

piborg's picture

piborg

Mon, 11/17/2014 - 13:32

Hi John,

In answer to your questions:

  1. DiddyBorg uses PicoBorg Reverse, which offers full speed control and forward / reverse control
  2. While Diablo would be capable of running DiddyBorg we would not suggest it as an upgrade because:
    1. PicoBorg Reverse is well suited to driving DiddyBorg, it is actually capable of more power then DiddyBorg requires
    2. The perspex does not have anywhere to mount Diablo, so to make it work you would need to find another way to mount the board

    3. Let us know if there is anything else you would like to know.

AstroJohn

Mon, 11/17/2014 - 16:57

That's great. Thanks.
My application needs a larger chassis and power source, so i don't need the perspex. Do you do a discounted kit of parts with everything (including fixings) except perspex sheets?
Thanks
John

piborg's picture

piborg

Mon, 11/17/2014 - 18:54

We sell all of the bits you would need separately.
Without including the perspex they would be:

AstroJohn

Tue, 11/18/2014 - 15:05

Great thanks.

Can you use a PC (usb) xbox style controller to control the robot through ssh? or is it a direct bluetooth link to dongle on the pi?

Cheers

piborg's picture

piborg

Tue, 11/18/2014 - 16:23

The provided joystick example code works with any device which is attached to the Raspberry Pi (by wire, Bluetooth or similar) which appears as a joystick.

I know the PS3 controllers can be attached to a generic Bluetooth dongle, based on the following link you can use a PC XBox controller instead:
http://mattdyson.org/blog/2013/01/using-an-xbox-360-wireless-controller-...

You could also use WiFi to connect the robot to a PC, you could then make a pair of scripts which talk over the WiFi to pass the joystick values like some of our PiCy example scripts, e.g.:
RemoteJoyBorg - Control a PicoBorg robot from a remote joystick

We would recommend connecting a wireless controller of some sort directly to the Raspberry Pi, that way there are less parts which can go wrong, plus you can use the standard example scripts ^_^

AstroJohn

Tue, 11/18/2014 - 21:34

Excellent information thanks.
My goal is to use a suite of ultrasonic detectors to work the bot autonomously, but with the option to take control. ( I’m sure I have read a guide on how to do the switch between the two modes somewhere)
I guess the simple way to get the thing moving is to couple it with a PS3 controller and BT dongle.
Thanks for your help.

cn12gpm

Fri, 01/29/2016 - 10:41

I am just starting out with my DiddyBorg project and I too am looking to use ultrasonic sensors to work the bot autonomously. Could you give me any tips or pointers on how to do this?
Thanks.

piborg's picture

piborg

Fri, 01/29/2016 - 11:17

Basically what you want to do is work out some rules on how he should move based on how far from objects he is.
When you know what you want him to do it should be as simple as reading the sensors and coding those rules up.

Someone else has been working on an automatic movement mode using the Web UI with a couple of ultrasonic sensors.
It should give you an idea of how these rules can be coded:
Diddiborg with Ultraborg over Web UI

AstroJohn

Thu, 11/20/2014 - 10:38

OK, i have been looking seriously at your kit, but I am concerned about ground clearance.
Do you know of any equivalent geared motors which deliver the drive to the wheels at 90 degrees to the motor shaft?

Cheers, and apologies for being needy!

John

piborg's picture

piborg

Thu, 11/20/2014 - 11:50

Hi,

If you google JGY-370 there are some exmaples of worm gear DC motors

They come in a range of rpm and voltages. If you were doing something similar to DiddyBorg, you would most likely want the 6V motors.
125 rpm would be fast (~twice the speed of DiddyBorg for the same size wheels) but less torque / climbing power The 19 rpm one would be slow but high torque and good with large wheels.

Although, you would still need a hub, grub screws and wheel to go with it.

Cheers,

PiBorg

AstroJohn

Thu, 11/20/2014 - 20:57

Really great information thanks. Those motors look good.

What size is the shaft on the standard diddyborg motors?

Cheers

John

piborg's picture

piborg

Sat, 11/22/2014 - 15:00

The standard DiddyBorg motor has a 4 mm shaft diameter.

AstroJohn

Tue, 11/25/2014 - 22:11

Thanks. I have been doing some research and I think diddy is just too small. (clue's in the name right)

I'd like to make a scaled up version, bigger chassis, motors and wheels, but i'm still attracted to the "out of the box" code available for diddy.

Picoborg Reverse drives motors up to 25V/10A combined right? So I just need to find motors and wheels to suit.

I'm sorry to appear dumb, but you guys know what your talking about. Can you point me to some larger motors? its hard to discern scale when browsing!

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