My Christmas presents to myself (and my Domino Fez)

I received yesteray(friday) some presents from me to me:

  • DFRobot 4WD Mobile Platform
  • DFRobot 2A Motor Shield For Arduino
  • Some misc. hardware

I’ve built up the robot with the help of Rug Community (http://www.rugcommunity.org/page/dfrobot-4wd-arduino-mobile). Make sure that you mount the top plate correctly, in their video it’s upside-down and that’s why they have to drill the plate. This robot doesn’t feel cheap at all!

I’ve added the motor shield to my Domino and plug my Logitech Dual Action joystick to make my little robot move. I’m now playing around to transfert the XY axis of my joystick to a 4WD (2 motors output, left and right like a tracked platform) movement.

Here some robot p0rn pictures for you:

Front View

Rear view

wow, this is a decent set. nice

I didn’t receive any gifts from me :frowning: I have been bad last year lol

very nice, I wish it had encoders though…btw, is there is reasonably priced robot base that has encoders and nice motors?

So, is it dancing yet?

For the encoders and motors kits, I do not know if they exists at a decent price. This kit have some basic motor in it and no encoders, not sure if they can fit in with the battery pack inside.

And yes, right now it’s really dancing!! I’m trying to figure out to convert my joystick XY Axis position to my 4 motors. Quite not there yet ???, but the forward and backward are good :). I’ll post a video when it will be under my full control!

here’s a rear view of the robot. You can see a switch and a hole. The switch is wired to the batteries pack (5x AA) inside the robot body, which provide power to the motor through the motor shield.

The other hole is for a 5V adapter, included in the kit. I did not know how to wire this one so I kept it aside.

At some point, I may rework this setup to have some kind of rechargeable battery back that I could wire to the 5V adapter, so I won’t have to open the robot to change batteries.

Well, you inspired me! I just ordered one too. I got it off of RobotShop because they had the 2A shield (you got the last 2A one off of dfrobot!). The only difference was I got the version with the encoders.

Looking forward to playing with mine now.

Incidently, why did you choose to go with the Domino instead of the Panda? I have both, just wondered if there was a special need that the Domino offered you planned on using?

He said something about connecting a USB joystick so I think that is maybe the reason why.

DFROBOT has a version of this kit which includes the encoders and they sell a set of two encoders as a retrofit for $13.

Do you have a link? I just looked and I am not finding it

Here is the kit with encoders:
[url]Baron-4WD Mobile Robot Platform for Arduino with Encoder-DFRobot

ANd the encoders alone:
[url]Gravity: TT Motor Encoders Kit-DFRobot

And, the encoder set also fits the 2WD platform:
[url]Turtle: 2WD Mobile Robot Platform for Arduino - DFRobot

Merry Christmas Gus!

Merry Christmas Bob and thanks for the links. I should get me one of these kits to play with

Same kit i use for my table top robot. The encoders wont fit with out taking of the front or back plate. It a very solid kit. the extra plug it is so you can run a rechargable battery with out having to tear it apart to charge.

The kit with the encoders mentioned above is not the same one. I have it also. The main difference between them is the one with encoders has no hi-rise plate to separate sensors from electronics. Both are very solid and would recommended them.

so I guess I now know what I should get me for xmas! lol

Effectively, the kit with the encoders is not the same as this one. Mine have the motors + battery back enclosed inside the bottom body. It was quite similar.

@ Peter Fischel: I did not ordered from DFRobot, but from RobotShop. Their warehouse is 10 min. away from my place, so I save on shipping :slight_smile: And I select the Domino mainly because of the USB Host.

Yesterday I was struggling moving my robot with 4 motors with my joystick, when I remembered my old RC car with tracks, who had 2 unidirectionnal joystick. My Logitech have 2 axis too! And guess what? The GHI SDK support 2 axis!! Now I’m can go anywhere!!.. as long as my USB cable …

This will probably be one of my next modification, and make some soldering too… :-[ My solder iron was dead, I’ll get a new one this week.

[quote]Yesterday I was struggling moving my robot with 4 motors with my joystick, when I remembered my old RC car with tracks, who had 2 unidirectionnal joystick. My Logitech have 2 axis too! And guess what? The GHI SDK support 2 axis!! Now I’m can go anywhere!!.. as long as my USB cable …
[/quote]

Yes, cursor and cursor 2 is supported. Moving a robot with a single joystick, like my logitech 3d pro, is always a struggle. Mostly I use a button press for left and right, and when the button is released, the joystick handles forward and backward.

Nice looking decent kit. I like the price. What I am always wondering is, will this turn on it’s place?