Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #12941
To: alt-beam@egroups.com
From: David Simmons devs@idirect.com
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2000 18:26:33 -0400
Subject: Almost Complete Walker
> Hey All,
>
> Almost complete walker complete, almost.
>
> I mentioned last week that Kyle (9 going on ten for those that don't
> know) had started to breadboard the almost compete walker circuit of
> Beam Online fame. I expected several failures the first time round due
> to the pure number of connections. Consider, the addition of the two
> H-Bridges, and LEDs to indicate gait. However he made only one mistake,
> missing a pin with one of the .22uf caps, which didn't long for him to
> debug.
>
> The same day he started to layout the circuit on pref. board, was nearly
> complete when he had to put it to the side for a few days. The week was
> nuts so he wasn't able to get back to the project until yesterday.
> Yesterday he completed the pref. board and the frame work and hooked it
> all up with jumpers. At that moment he was ready failure, or at least
> major problems. At first it just wiggled around in one spot, with a
> quick flip of the connections for the back servo and it started to walk
> across the table. He tested the reverse, and the started to finish off
> the body etc.
>
> Today he was busy right from the morning to get everything just the way
> he wanted it so it will ready to show off to a few friends, grandparents
> and so on. Making the tactile sensor, mounting it, mounting the battery
> pack and so on.
>
> For the entire project my involvement was limited to a little dremel
> work, and paying for the parts. This one he wanted to do all on his own.
>
> O.K. the proud Dad part is over.
>
> There is some work left to be done, he plans on making some better legs
> once he finds a better way to mount to the servos and gluing down the
> power switch. Just little details like that.
>
> Thanks to all the talk about the almost complete walker over the past
> few weeks that I've been passing onto Kyle he was well prepared for the
> problems that occurred and to avoid most of them all together.
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>
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