I've been in the IT area for over 30 years and recently I've gotten into the Arduino arena as a hobby. It was June when I received my 1st Digix board.
Since then, a lot of reading, a lot of experimenting.
I've set as my 1st Project, to build what is called an "Inverted Pendulum Robot". basically, it's a robot that runs on 2 wheels and relies on sensors to keep it upright. I'm using 2 Stepper Motors to drive the wheels and so far I've gotten to the point where I'm using:
2 Hybrid Stepping Motors (4-wire) 1.8 step angle, 12V, .33A (Sparkfun ROB-09238)
2 BigEasy Stepper Drivers to run the motors. up to 1.4A/phase (Sparkfun ROB-11876)
AccelStepper.h (v1.41) Library for moving the wheels. this has not gone well, but I'll get into that further down the road (excuse the pun).
MMA7455 Accelerometer board. from Parallax
L3G4200D Gyro board. again, from Parallax
A structural framework to get everything in place.
Eventually, distance sensors, and hopefully, a camera for object avoidance and course guidance.
I just wanted to post this out there to see if anyone else has either already done a project like this,
or is in the process of a similar project,
or would be interested in seeing how this all plays out.
I know there are a lot of 'bots' out there that have gone the DC Motor route using PWM as an output, but I'm sticking hard to using Steppers in that I have other projects in mind (CNC for instance) that will make use of Steppers, also.
I'll be back soon with where i am on this project, hopefully some pics, if i can figure out how to get them inbedded in the posts, and some sketches on past foibles, and how they have directed me to the place I am right now. Just wanted to get a dialogue going.
Russ from Coral Springs, Fl
