Fixstuff's World: More progress this weekend

Alright folks,

I made good progress this weekend. I mounted the parts for the Drive Box, which includes the power supplies, the motor amplifiers, relays and local IO board (using DSP Robotics Flowboard). I decided on the Flowboard at the last minute because I found out that the output drive IC is a ULN2803 - which will allow me to drive the 24V relays directly without an extra SSR board. Its handy. I even have some low resolution A/D on the board, which I will use to monitor all the power supplies.

I also mounted the treadplate for the chassis. This will allow me to mount items more flexibly than the bare cross beams I had before. It looks better also :)

Finally, I started on the detector coil sweep arm assembly. I got the riser and extension section prototyped up, it looks like it will work just fine. I will remake the two square tubing pieces and make them longer enventually, I want 12" of stroke, and right now only have about 9 or 10. I didn't buy enough, so I have to get more. I still have to add the wooden dowel end piece and coil attachment, for the non-metallic distance factor. I ordered a 6inch lazy susan bearing off Ebay Friday so the rotation base. The sweep arm assembly will mount to a 12"x12" aluminum plate rotating on the bearing. It should give me a nice, smooth rotation axis. After that I will attach the sprocket assembly and motor, and that should complete the arm assembly once its mounted to the chassis.

I also remade the two wheel mounts for the Inviracare motors. I finally got some more material, so I went ahead and made those pieces.

Here are some pictures that show some of the new stuff.

This is the lid of the Drive box. Still need to add some circuit breakers.. I had to use Velcro for the super small 24V23 amplifiers because I couldn't find screws small enough to mount them :(

These are the power supplies for the Drive Box. Four 24V supplies for the motors, and a 500W ATX power supply for everything else. Velcro for the ATX also, since there was no mounting holes other than the power cord side...