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We’ve got you covered. The Acroname 84 Channel USB Servo Controller allows you to control an almost absurd amount of servos making this the perfect board for any over-achiever’s robotics project. Now if controlling 84 servos wasn’t enough, get this: Each of the 84 channels can be set to Digital Input, Digital Output or Servo Output. Additionally, 36 of the channels can act as 10-bit Analog inputs. That makes this one of our most versatile I/O boards yet!
We’re always on the lookout for useful and inexpensive gadgets to add to our Robotics Lab, and while searching around for a small, inexpensive Wifi (as in 802.11) camera for use in Mech Warfare I finally settled on the Airlink 101 SkyIPCam250w Part #AIC250W. Personally I found mine at a local Fry’s Electronics for about $105, but we also sourced them online here.
Here is my quick review here on the forums of this camera:
Image quality is mediocre, but good enough to view things at a max of 8-10 feet. Frame rate is 30+ and response time is in the 50ms range running the camera at 320×240.
Main board is 10cm x 5.5cm. Camera board is 5.5cm x 3cm and attaches to the main board at a right angle. It appears to be a 1mm spaced header pin port, so it could easily be extended for custom mounting solutions. Entire camera unit stripped down and including antenna weighs 91 grams. The antenna is a u.FL connection, so this could be replaced with a custom solution if needed.
Overall a solid little camera for the price. If you’re on a budget, this is about as good as it gets. Keep in mind for ‘competition’ performance, you’ll need to run it at 320×240, but that can be stretched. Image quality is enough to pilot and aim I would say, but I wouldn’t expect to read text with it. Definitely usable for Mech Warfare within 10-15 feet though. Oh and the IP web interface uses Java and/or Active X, so you could pull the control from it and add it into a custom form easily.
Here are some pictures! (click to enlarge)
Since we don’t care about the bulky exterior casing, here’s what it looks like stripped down:
And this is with the camera board removed:
You probably have heard the term thrown around, but many out there might not know what an Accelerometer does exactly. They are used in a variety of modern machines and gadgets, and a necessity for dynamic balancing in walking robots. Here is a quick tutorial video that we put together, explaining the basics and application of Accelerometers.
Hiding behind bushes in a monster costume and jumping out to scare would be trick-or-treaters is sooo 1995. That and it can earn you a beat down from an unsuspecting parental guardian. Here’s a way to do it while you’re safely hiding within your house.
First, either purchase or build a scary pop-out halloween prop, screaming speaker, or flashing lights of your choice. Here’s a pretty fancy one made out of PVC and other various items:
Couple this with one of our simple Floor Mat Switches….
and you’ve got an automatic Halloween gag that is sure to make a few kids soil their costumes!
Parallax Motor Mount and Wheel Kit with Position Controller
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| Click thumbnails to see high-res versions. | ||
Anybody can slap together some motors and wheels, bolt a mounting block on there, and call it a drive module. However, it takes a company like Parallax to do it properly. These things are beautiful, really. They’re not meant for junkbotters who want to build everything on the cheap. You’re looking at the Mercedes Benz of drive modules. The drive modules incorporate motors, pneumatic tires, custom-machined hardware, and a smart encoder board. The encoder on its own is pretty ingenious. It can be used to track the motion of the wheels, reporting speed and position back to the robot’s brain; AND it can be used as a bridge between your robot’s brain and your motor controller, actively controlling the power going to the motors to ensure that they’re doing precisely what you commanded them to do. Cool stuff.
For more details, specs, manuals, etc; head on over to our Parallax Motor Mount and Wheel Kit with Position Controller product page.
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| Arduino Nano. Same great taste, half the calories. |
The Arduino Nano is the newest incarnation of everybody's favorite little blue development board. Designed in response to the popularity of other miniature Arduino development boards, Nano is the smallest fully functional Arduino with a built-in USB port! This little beast can be powered through the USB port's 5V line, or by an external 7-12V power supply. Its small footprint and 1/10" pin spacing make it ideal for breadboarding. Just like its predecessors, it uses an Atmel ATmega168 microcontroller, and is programmed using the Wiring language. For more info on programming for Arduino, or for more general Arduino info, check out Arduino.cc.
Buy your Arduino Nano from us so we can feed our starving families!
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| Photo courtesy of SparkFun Electronics. |
We recently got a batch of these neat little TTL-controlled laser modules in stock. Needless to say, we did what what we always do when we get a new toy. We played with it and took some pictures! It was super easy to wire up, and it can be switched on and off with any TTL logic signal. It draws a miniscule amount of current (26 mA on our meter). It has a pretty good output, too. Don’t expect to see it a mile away, but when we shined it at a white wall in direct sunlight at a distance of about 12 feet, it projected a bright, sharp dot.
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| American Twenty-five cent piece shown for size comparison. |
The thing is freaking tiny, too. Slim and sleek.
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| It’s as thick as a nickel! Would have used the quarter from the last picture, but we couldn’t get one to stand on its edge. Yep. So far this post has cost me thirty cents. |
As we’ve mentioned, wiring it up and controlling it is a cinch. To use it with the Phidgets 8/8/8, we used the power and ground connections on one of the analog connectors and one digital output to switch it on and off.
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| Three wires are all you need. Power, ground, and digital control. |
Here’s our test setup. Laser module is connected to the 8/8/8 with jumper wires from SparkFun.
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| Here it is. The stuff. |
Buy stuff from us!!!
TTL-Controlled Laser Module
F/F Jumper Wires
Phidgets 8/8/8
We’re big fans of the Bioloid system. We love the smart actuators and integrated sensor modules, but like many Bioloid users, we’ve lamented the lack of additional sensor inputs. Luckily for us, Bioloid guru Jon Hylands felt the pain of the Bioloid community and created some devices to fill the void. Thanks to Robotis’ published Dynamixel architecture, anyone who’s savvy with microcontrollers can create peripherals that will blend seamlessly with the stock Bioloid components. Jon is as savvy as anyone, and we’re happy to be using and selling the hardware he’s created. Anyway, here’s some cool stuff for all you Bioloid fans out there, or anyone interested in using Dynamixels in their own custom project.
| USB Bus Board | |
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The USB Bus Board gives you virtual COM port access to the Dynamixel serial bus. It has six connectors, but of course it supports a network of up to 254 Dynamixels. It uses the FTDI transceiver chip, so if you’ve used other USB virtual COM port devices, there’s a good chance you already have the driver installed. A great plug-and-play alternative to the USB2Dynamixel adapter. |
| Bioloid I/O Board | |
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This general-purpose I/O board gives your Bioloid robot the ability to connect to almost any analog (0-5 volt) sensor. It includes 6 analog inputs (10 bit resolution on each). It also includes four general digital I/O pins, and can control one or two DC motor controllers using either locked anti-phase or sign magnitude PWM. Pretty cool. |
| Bioloid IMU | |
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In one package, you get 3 axes of acceleration measurement and 3 axes of gyroscopic measurement. It comes fully assembled, and ready to install into a stock Bioloid humanoid chest compartment. |
| FSR Foot Sensor Board | |
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Look closely at the soles of your Bioloid’s feet. Those little round indentations were clearly designed to accept 0.2" FSR’s. This interface board can read 4 FSR’s, enough for one foot. The board fits neatly into the foot, and plugs into the Dynamixel network. The kit includes the board, 4 FSR’s, and leads for the sensors. |
If you have any questions, or you need advice about using these boards, go ahead and post about it in the TRC Forums.
We have some exciting news for all of you fine people who have been calling us up over the years asking why there isn't an inexpensive plug-and-play solution for controlling stepper motors from a computer. Phidgets has just released the PhidgetStepper Unipolar 4-Motor controller! This little board, which is retailing for just $72.74, allows you to control up to 4 unipolar stepper motors from your USB port. Building a CNC rig? Building a wheeled robot that will need fast, precise speed and position control? Buy this controller.
From the official press release:
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Phidgets adds a $75.00 stepper controller to its line of motor controllers The 1062 – PhidgetStepper Unipolar 4-motor, can control up to 4 stepper motors. CALGARY, Alberta, April 29, 2008 ― Phidgets Inc. today announced the addition of a new product to its family of motor controllers. The 1062 Stepper controller controls the position, velocity and acceleration of up to 4 unipolar stepper motors. Applications that require precise The 1062 plugs directly into the computer’s USB port and comes with a USB cable. Like all Phidgets, application programs can be written using the Phidgets API. “The 1062 Product Manual’s Technical Section contains valuable information and programming tips on how to “We already offer Servo controllers, and a variety of DC motor controllers. The arrival of a stepper controller fills a void in our family of motor controllers. ” says Chester Fitchett, CEO of Phidgets. “We have paid close attention to costs in order to give our customers the value/price ratio they are expecting from Phidgets.” added Fitchett. Product Specifications “Unlike a lot of our competitor’s products that require their users to write some firmware code in order to use their sensor, we are completely “Plug and Play” says Bernard Rousseau, Director of Marketing. “With Phidgets, you plug it in and start using it and when it comes to programming, the user, not us, decides which operating system and which computer language he wants to use”, added Rousseau. Users can program Phidgets using a simple yet powerful and well documented Application Programming Interfade (API) that is supported under Windows (2000, XP, Vista), Windows CE, Mac OS X, and Linux. Users can write programs in Visual Basic, VB.NET, C#, C/C++, Flash/Flex, Java, Labview, Matlab, ActionScript 3.0, and Cocoa. Phidgets also provides programming examples for all its products to help programmers write their own programs. The API Libraries as well as the examples and the documentation are available at no charge on www.Phidgets.com. |
We've been adding new products to the catalog like crazy lately, so we figured now would be a good time to make sure you knew about some of them. To start you off, here’s a cool way to add GPS to computer-controlled robot:
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Lassen iQ GPS Receiver
This is a USB-interfaced GPS receiver. The kit includes a Trimble Lassen IQ Receiver, an interface board created by SparkFun, and everything else you need to tap into the GPS network. |
And here are some Bluetooth modules so you can get rid of all those wires and tethers you keep tripping over:
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Parallax EmbeddedBlue Transceiver AppMod
This Bluetooth module from Parallax was designed for easy integration into any Basic Stamp 2 project. It works great with the Board of Educationn, BOE Bot, or SumoBot mini sumo robot. We also offer the Microsoft Robotics Studio-compatible BOE Bot kit, which includes the EmbeddedBlue module. |
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BlueSMiRF Silver
The BlueSMiRF is a very simple to use Bluetooth modem. It acts as a serial bridge, and it’s practically a drop-in replacement for any wired connection. Works great with any microcontroller system, including Arduino and Basic Stamp. |
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RooTooth
This little jobber is a Bluetooth Wireless adapter for the iRobot Roomba robotic vacuum. Use it to control your Roomba from your computer, cell phone, PDA, or whatever Bluetooth device you happen to be using. Chase your pets, stage Roomba sumo matches, set up synchronized Roomba dance routines… Or you could just vacuum the floor. Whatever floats your boat, man. |
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Bluetooth USB Module
A simple, cheapo USB Bluetooth adapter. There isn’t much more that needs to be said. Use it to connect your computer to all of your other Bluetooth gizmos. |
That’s all for now. Stay tuned for another big update next week!
