Spazzie’s Miniturization is Underway!
I am excited to announce that I have finally begun shrinking down old Spazzie’s guts, making him at least about 60% smaller! Same great taste, less filling!
One thing not in the picture is the power supply. When I plugged it in via mini-usb to program it, everything worked well, including the IR rangefinder, motors, LED, and piezo. However, when I tested it with a 1xAA to 5V step-up, and a small 3.7V at 850mAh lipo I got from Sparkfun, there were some issues. Both batteries seemed to get the motors running ok, but there seemed to be something going on with the Sharp IR rangefinder. I set it up to turn on an LED when it was “too close” (The distance at which Spazzie chooses a new direction), and the thing eventually would start blinking (which makes no sense) with my hand in front.
I think it is maybe not getting enough juice. One possible reason? I am using the VCC on the mini to power the whole robot. Including VCC and VM on my TB6612FNG motor driver (which I wrote about here). Even though it works, and the tiny motors seem ok with it, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not 100% kosher. I may try two power supplies tonight, and see how that works out. Power is definitely going to be coming into play more and more, so I really want to get a handle on it asap.
Video coming soon – I am excited to see how much faster this duder is without all that bulk on him.
Next steps:
0) Test dual power supplies!
1) Implement New Rangefinder!
2) Add XBee control!
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