Building has been fun recently.
Decided to delay the magic panel and DBC installs, I want to look at the
base of my code first. Reduce a few signal lines and replace them
with 2 way comms.
But I added the 2 relays to the dome, these control the power to
the servos. One for the 3 HP servos and
one for the rest of the doors. They both
prevent any servo twitch as the main power is connected, so connection order is
no longer an issue for the dome. They
also power off the door servos 2s after they are all closed. This allows the doors to be pulled open when on, stops any servo buzz
and saves power. Really good, highly recommended. These will be included in the BHD write-up. Will also be adding these to the body servos,
and maybe the dome motor for completeness.
I then moved back to the 2-3-2, James had offered to ask Roger to
look at the ankles and leg rod fixings in the feet, so I took him up on the
offer, hoping to get this finished once and for all. The play in those areas was causing a lot of
wobble in the 2-3-2. So almost a full
day of stripping the legs on the Saturday, then I set off to Roger’s last
Sunday. We remade the JAG push-in
inserts for the ankles for a tight fit on the shoulder bolts, and made them a
little longer too. Then we redid the leg
rod fixings in the feet, these now cannot move, and the rod more easily rotates
on the brass bush and so it looked like it should solve the issues.
I also wanted to show you my ankle bracelet brackets. :)
So then came 3 evenings of re-assembly! So much work to get it all back
together. James came over Thursday
evening to help as catcher. So tested it, it looked amazing, so much more
solid and reliable. But all the
positions were wrong. So I uploaded the
tweaked code…..then nothing. Dead. I spent about 5 hours debugging, thinking initially that I had knocked
out a wire and then that I had shorted the Xbee. Nope, I had accidentally deleted the line
Serial.begin(9600); not clever,
obviously the serial wont work without that! So once id found that I recalibrated all the
positions, re did the 2-3-2 code so that the signal to drive the feet stops
when the first actuator stops and not both (looks much better). It is so nice now. Really smooth and stable. There is one little detail of the bolts that attach the legs now taking
all the force so they undo themselves, but an easy fix with the right washers.
So here is my 2-3-2 as it should be, stable, balanced and
reliable. No face-plants, no wobbles,
just 2 legs to 3 legs and back. Maybe 60 cycles + now, and still running
perfectly. Long may it last. But if you are doing 2-3-2, it is a
nightmare, does require lots of work, it is different on a dressed droid, and
just because it does it once, doesn't mean it will do it all year long. Don’t give up, just keep finding more ways that don’t work till you find
one that does. My whole frame now needs a rebuild to allow more space for the CPU arm and claw, they fit, but not their mechs. :)
Anyone who says they have 2-3-2, unless you have done 100 cycles without issue, you haven't even started. :)
This Sunday we had another Builders day at my local hall. We had a really nice Dalek, a beautiful B9, 3
complete droids and 2 part droids, oh and a really nice mouse droid. There are a lot of talented folk in the UK.
The day included (or was taken over by) an Arduino workshop. I wanted to get a few people working with
arduinos and felt that the initial phase was the tough one, so doing an intro
and making something fun would be a good start and maybe help others to pick up
Arduino and run with it. It went really
well, they seemed to enjoy it, and were showing each other how to solve stuff
by the end, which is usually a good sign.
I had planned to do a load of testing in an open space, but didn’t
get chance. Next time.
I finally got the Relays for the feet, only a 5 week
delivery! Will be adding those ASAP.
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