Well it's been a busy month and the Holidays are a few days away. I've made
a big dent in the initial fabrication of the robot. Almost all of the
initial polycarbonate chassis panels have been designed and fabricated.
Some are very specific to components that are currently attached to
them and may need to change as the design evolves. Current weight of all chassis components is right at 2 pounds. I've uploaded pictures for your viewing pleasure.
The thing about owning something that is numerically controlled like my CNC router is that you begin to hate analog controls like hand cranks. Inexpensive lathes and mills also tend to have a lot of backlash that has to be compensated for. A good solution is to add a digital readout or DRO to the machine. This eliminates counting cranks and displays actual movement of the work or tool mitigating the backlash problem. There's only one catch. You don't want your DRO to cost more than the machine you're putting in on. Well there is a solution.
One of the first decisions you will probably make when building a robot is what kind of drive train/locomotion will it have (will it even move at all). Like all good design, form follows function so you should ask yourself a few questions:
How fast does it need to be
How maneuverable
What terrain does it need to be able to traverse
How reliable does it need to be
These simple questions will go a long way in helping you determine the best choice for your robot's drive train. Remember that good design involves trade-offs and compromise and what we're looking for is the option that is simple, reliable and gives the best results for the most design requirements.
CLICK THE "READ MORE" LINK FOR AN OVERVIEW OF LOCOMOTION STRATEGIES.
