Finished wheel motor testing

Ok, I got three of the four motors working.  It appears that the 4th amplifier is bad.  I'll have to send it back for a return.  I'm not sure why it's bad, hope it isn't a trend.  


I had to pull the ATX power supply. I only need 12V out of it, and I needed the terminal space, so I changed it out to a dedicated small 12V supply to get the 12V. 


The brake I burned up a while back is fixed.  I had found two surplus brakes on ebay.  They were for a different motor, but I modified it to replace the bad one, and it worked great.  Fortunately, its a 24V brake like the other two motors.  I have one extra brake, so I will replace the other 12v brake as well so that they are all 24V.


Some next steps:


1) Replace bad 24v23 amplifier.
2) Get power to Flowboard and Phidget SBC2
3) Wire Flowboard Digital Outputs to Brake and Motor Enable Relays
4) Test Phidget Sensors over webservice
5) Wire up Sweep Arm Linear actuators
6) Mount encoders to non-driven feedback wheels, and finish cover boxes.
7) Mount encoder to sweep arm rotation
8) Mount rotation motor and belt drive to sweep arm
9) Wire up Phidget Motor Amplifiers
10) Power up/Test Phidget motor amplifiers...

First motor test last night

Ran the first motor tonight! Yay!  This was done over the network, using a VNC viewer connected to the server on the rover PC.  The motor amplifier (Pololu 24v23) is driving the motor.  I used the Simple motor center test program to test the motor.

I'll be wiring the other motors this week, and testing on the weekend.

The metal detector didn't seem fazed by the motor testing either...

video here:

Weekend work on Controls Enclosure

Ok, I didn't like how the lid turned out from a couple weeks ago in mounting some of the parts.  There were too many screws and nuts poking out, which would have created a leaking issue one day, and it looked bad.  So,  I ordered inner aluminum panels for the lids, and butch plates for the box interfacing.  A butch plate is basically a term is to describe a cutout on an enclosure, with a plate cover for mounting connectors, penetrations, etc. This prevents constant cutting and drilling into the enclosures, when adding or modifying connectors.  In total, I added seven plates to the two boxes, four butch plates, two lid inner panels, and a replacement bottom panel for one box.

To eliminate the added cost of either connectors between boxes or conduit, I cut out and joined the two boxes together, which will allow cabling and wires to go between enclosures. I did the cutting of the hole, the four butch plate cutouts, and the box joining last week.

During the week, I also mounted all of the parts to the three remaining panels.  Doing this I found to be MUCH easier mounting the boards to a sub-panel on a workbench, rather than having to deal with stretching and contorting myself to get into the boxes.

So now, having cut all the butch plate cutouts, and mounted and bolted the two boxes together, it was ready for final painting.  Since I had pre-painted boxes, I had to find a paint that would allow me to paint over my existing boxes as is with only minor cleaning.  I found some, and this allowed me to not deal with blasting off the existing paint, and not dealing with a primer coat.  I test painted a throw away panel to make sure it looked ok.  I finished painting yesterday and mounted the assembled inner panels after drying.

The paint looks nicer than the pix show, and I may actually paint the sweep arm and rover chassis with the same paint.  It will give the whole rover, a uniform stealth look, and should look pretty good.

Below are some pictures of the box...

Side 1 Butch Plate holes cut, original paint

Side 1 Butch Plates installed, new paint

Side 2 Butch plate holes cut, original paint

Side 2 Butch Plates installed, new paint

Phidget and Pololu Motor Drives and Flowboard Lid

Computer and Sensor Lid

Interface Wiring Section

Power Supply Section.  Notice the cutout center.