Life-form scanner electronics part 12

January 24th 2021

Found a ‘box’ on Thingiverse for the Pololu control board. So that got printed, and it’s  a perfect fit!

Next up was something I’ve sort of been looking forward to.... the Pololu 6 servo controller. Downloaded the program and plugged in the controller board along with two servos I had to hand. You also need power for the servos. The instructions online are good, but ..... I personally find watching/listening to step by step guides, is better at understanding a process. And I had a short sequence running in no time at all. This is going to be fun setting up the life-form scanner setup.

February 2nd 2021

360° servos have also now arrived & have been tested.

Also the ‘Y’ servo lead’s came to.

Now to get on with the fine tuning.

Electronics & Automation upgrade time..... 1.1

Servo's &  brackets & leads arrived at the weekend.

The servo's I'd ordered were cheap budget Tower Pro ones. Only because I wanted to test that I could get the transmitter to work them. I'd also bout some brackets to be able to fit them. These didn't fit over the servo's location lugs, so I had to file them down a bit to fit. No big problem and they now fit a lot better.

So got to playing with the Transmitter settings in the hope I can actually control the Utility arm's once connected up. See next update on Utility Arm movement Blog post.....

Result!

Thought I'd have to have both arms servo's running off a Y-splitter, but I must of set both 'switches' A & B the same, and the knobs too. This means I can dial the servo's to OPEN position, and then flip the switch and the action is cancelled and the arms will 'CLOSE'..... well, that's the thinking, tho may need to swap this round.

LED's & Fibre optic cable came too. More on this later on......

On order was a new 12 Channel remote control, for sound activation........hope this one works properly!

.......well, this came a LOT sooner than I expected, minus a mini battery [no big deal].... But it arrived the day after I actually got my old one working properly!?!?!

Thought I'd try to sort old 12 Channel remote, one last time. Noticed that the remote's LED was dimming, so swapped it over....... All the channels relays 'switch', they all work and they all play their connected sounds.....What the.....?!?!? Am not 100% sure that this was the cause of the problem, but can't believe that this could of been the whole problem?
But I don't really care, am to happy that it all works lol, even the 'NEXT' function settings work, so I have multipule sounds from clicking one button!

Wired up one of the leads from the slip ring to activate R5's bad motivator sound from the second remote, but couldn't get it to work. Not going to worry to much as it will just have to be operated from the main remote control and be a two finger button pressing operation lol

Electronics & Automation upgrade time..... 1.0

As I was not happy with the limited sounds available, due to the 12 channel remote unit not working properly, I've now got round to it & ordered a new one, should be here next month lol.

I've also ordered some servo's to see about getting his utility arms moving. Also ordered a y-lead splitter in case I need it.