Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #03096
To: Wilf Rigter Wilf.Rigter@powertech.bc.ca,
From: Dennison dennlill@buffnet.net
Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 17:39:05 -0400
Subject: [alt-beam] Analog driver signals from uCore And Uni-motor locomotion.
Hey, after reading that thing about the stepper motors I got to thinking.
One of the things I had been looking at was speed control for motors driven
by a uCore or bicore (etc...) The thing I had thought of was to use PWM at
the enable lines of a '245 and drive the enable with a bicore or other
osscilator. Simple, and effective, but it wasn't exactly what I want. Now,
looking at the timeing diagram i did for a report I did on NV's (no it's
terrible for many reasons, I won't post it) one immediatly notices that an
NV is a RC timer, with a threshold device on the end (the inverter). The
inverter is what turns the analog into digital. The motors are connected via
this digital output. Here's a thought, why not drive motors with the 'in'
side of the inverter, useing the Analog slope from the charge side of the
cap. I realize you can't exactly drive stuff directly, but It would seem
possible to develop some sort of perhaps an amplifying type transistor
H-bridge or something do drive useing this part. The important thing would
be that you the motor signals have to be clearly analog. In this fashion you
could control the volt difference across the motor, besides being just
digital, and subsequently the speed of the motor. While this might not be
very important for things such as walkers, it would be an advantage in lone
Bicore Heads.
Why?
Well a year or more ago I built an nice little horizontal swing HEAD, and I
posted to the list my observation that my head, was able to 'walk around'.
It's basically a version of an 'inertia' drive (ooh! REad on before you go
crazy) You can try it yourself, make the base of your head light, and swing
the head in big sweeps, you'll notice that the head will move around, due to
the inertia of the device. And it will bump around in a pretty random
fashion. But here's a kicker, It's too difficult right now to produce
controlled, reliable motion, ALTHOUGH it shows very high potential to be
phototropic. A solar powered device would be phototropic based on the
Miniball Principle. Since although the head has a large swing it still
points primarilly in the direction of the brightest light, so it 'bumps'
itself somewhat twards this brightest light source. NEAT HUH? Well one Idea
I was thinking about to make it more directional was the speed of the motor.
If you could control the speed of the motor, you could vary the inertia of
the device in different swings, and when it's swinign in different
directions. So, that seemed like a viable idea for the whole ordeal.
Anyway, If anyone goes about submiting this into Chiu's contest, because it
is a spanking neat method of locomotion, and really innovative, just try to
give me a little credit, because I did do a little work on my part to be
able to post this, experimenting and such. I plan to submit a bot like this
myself, or a magneto driven device, but It's always possible I won't get
around to it. So, maybe I'll call it D-Drive, or something. Or more
technical, like Angular Momentum Drive. I think I've explained how the
device works, hope the concept isn't too confusing, or my words to simple!
:-)
Dennison
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