Experiment Goals:
- Learn how to move vehicles.
- Try to power those with renewable energy sources.
- Learn new Intel-related HW: Genuino101, Edison + Sparkfun extension boards
Conclusions:
- There was a frustrating experience that took 3 days to debug. 3 of 12 wires I have used were non-conducting. I realized that the source of un-expected behaviore are wires only after comparing to another controller and poser rails. Conclusion: in any case, before constructing – to check wires are conducting using muti-meter.
- Thought going low voltage, but finally decided to stay 5V at all power-rails (motors/ucontroller) and being able to recharge from 5V solar panels. Reasons: 3.7 V as motors Vin – too weak to move self-weight steadily. When battery weak 3.7V may be enough to power led on Genuino101, but sketch doesn’t start.
- As these cars are mostly used in indoors, 6V Solar Panels are better to be used instead those 5V ones, that were available for me. Due to lack of direct sun the voltage that was produced by 5V battery was ~1V..2V less than expected which is on the edge for even 3.7V Sparkfun Battery module. Assumption: if 6V panels will be used this will give ~4.5V indoors and more with synthetic light on them which should be enough for more frequent/stable charging cycles and still be not burning 3.7/5V cirquits.
- Of all reviewed (example1, example2, example3, example4) and partially prototyped (transistor-/relay- based) solutions for DC motors control for navigating vehicles, Dual H-bridge Module (spec) appears to be most pin-saving and easy-to wire and use solution. Some of the modules are not even huge in size (like Sparkfun): I believe the larger module size the higher load may be applied (current drown).
Components:
- 6V Solar panels (ebay
)
- Genuino101-based large chassis car:
- Genuino101 (ebay
, forum)
- L298N Dual H-Bridge (ebay
) for wheels rotation direction control
- 4WD Robot Car Chassis (ebay
)
- Genuino101 (ebay
- Edison and Sparkfun based
- Edison (Edison at Sparkfun)
- 2WD Mini Round Double-Deck Smart Robot Car Chassis DIY Kit for Arduino (ebay)
- Sparkfun: Edison Base Module
- Sparkfun: Dual H-Bridge Module (spec and documentation, hook-up guide and code example)
- Sparkfun: ADC Module
- Sparkfun: Battery Module
- Sparkfun: 9Degrees of freedom module
Elaboration with IntelMakers Community:
Cars for Google GCP Event and after after it
SW:
- Genuino101
- Edison (Python)
- Python library for control over Spark-Fun H-Bridge Module (by jipech)
- Low Level Skeleton Library for IO Communication on GNU/Linux platforms
- Installing/updating the MRAA I/O and UPM sensor libraries
- Reference SparkFun H-Bridge_Block for Edison CPP Library
- Custom code: https://github.com/pageal/Edison_robots/
Architecture:
- Genuino-base Large Chassis:
- Edison-based Small Chassis:
Pics and Story:
Assembly of chassis and mechanics
Edison, Sparkfun and Solar
Larger car chassis
Useful links: