Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #05925



To: alt-beam@eGroups.com
From: jaf60@student.canterbury.ac.nz
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 08:52:52 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: blinking bicore


jaf6-@student.canterbury.ac.nz wrote:
> I too would like to solarize a bicroe based robot. I've got now
> expirience with solar powered bicore devices. I realy have no clue
what
> kind of capacitor is ideal, or if the bicore recieves power at all
times
> and only the motor uses the cap, or what??? I simply have never done
> this before. if anyone has recomendations as to how the SE and Bicore
> are connected, please, do tell!

I messed around with these issues when putting together the bicore
photovore circuit at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/1121/beam/bivo
re.htm
(It uses a bicore per motor, and is solarized).

I cannot remember how much power savings were made by disabling the
bicores during charging, except that there were power savings, hence
the two bicores are placed to be both controlled by the same enable pin
on the 240, which is wired to the solar engine's signal. The solare
engine (swiped from Ben Hitchcock's Alf circuit) uses the inverters
attached to the opposite pin, which is permanently enabled. Using 245's
as drivers allows them also to be disabled during charging (you'll
notice pins 19 on the 245 and 240 are wired together).
Regarding the capacitor, I recall that a quick one helped, but for the
photovore design above a big cap is really preferable (both motors go
together), so I go for both types in parrallel, but you might want to
play around.
Hope that helps...

Seeya
Justin

Home