fast documentation of hardware and software projects
Following on from my previous blog post using a webcam and a laser as a rangefinder, it’s now mounted on a cheap 3 euro stepper motor and used to make a 2d map of the surroundings. As you can see from the video the results are not great, I think with a bit more work…
There’s a Robosumo competition coming up. The microcontroller chosen for the job was the PIC 18F14k50. The sensors being used are Sharp infrared rangefinder (to locate the opposing robot), and IR colour detecting sensors (to detect when the robot has reached the edge of the ring). All of these sensors give out a voltage somewhere…
This plotter was built using parts from cd disc drives. The parts that actually control the motion are the steppers in the cd drives. The steppers are normally used to move a laser diode back and forth over the disc to read it. For this project, a separate disc drive was attached perpendicular to the…
This is what a strip encoder looks like: They are used to add position feedback to things that move in a linear way. For example, printers and scanners. Some printers use DC motors with strip encoders as opposed to stepper motors. The reason for this likely because DC motors are cheaper than steppers.