After weeks of searching local hobby stores for 5/32 tube styrene, I broke down and ordered some from Amazon. I cut these into bushings of sorts, since the inside diameter of the wheels are much bigger than the motor shafts, and I press fit and glued them onto the shafts. Then I glued on the wheels. And yes, I am using the book, Sojourner by Andrew Mishkin, as a quick stand to put the tires on. From what I've read of this book so far, it is definitely inspirational for me and I can't wait to read more! I was recommended this book by friend and author, Jay Gallentine who wrote Ambassadors from Earth. Another book I highly recommend for space history nerds like myself. I also want to extend a huge thanks to Jay for giving me a good push and some fantastic ideas for the future of this project. Hopefully I'll be able to share more on this in the coming months.
Next we have wiring. I needed to add some on/off switches, a voltage regulator, and a diode to the total power output.
I added a power rail too for better organization. The toggle switches are for the battery and the solar panels. The solar panels are for charging the battery and possibly powering the whole thing but I won't find that out now until the sun comes back up in the summer. I decided it would be nice to isolate the 2 power sources for testing purposes. The voltage regulator was also a tricky one to track down. You'd think a 9v 7809 regulator would be easy to find at radio shack or even in my electronics lab. But no, I had to order that as well. Amazon has been my rover's best friend. The voltage regulator takes the 11.5 volts coming from the solar/battery circuit and holds it at 9 volts to safely power the Arduino and servos. I will still add a small battery sampling circuit so the rover can relay battery life back to me though. That will be coming kind of soon.
Once I got everything soldered together, it was time for a quick drive.... outside! My rover's first drive outside!
Very exciting to see it driving along on pavement instead of carpet. However, it was short lived. When I decided to turn, my temporarily attached motors popped off the temporary place holders. No problem though. Just had to glue them back on and finish cleaning up the wiring. I did manage a quick drive in the kitchen again to test it out more.
Unfortunately I can't seem to upload the video so here's a quick video in the living room.
Next I focused on a mock up of the camera mount. Here I took 7/16 styrene tubing, cut it at a 45 and attached it to the servo.
Then added a rotational platform.
Then I did basically the same thing for the other half, added a rubber band to hold it together and to provide some spring to the rotation, and got these pics:
And this little animation that I whipped up on Inventor..
I plan to replace the mock-up with a better 3D printed version later. Which reminds me.. I'll have my very own 3D printer from Zeepro coming in April some time thanks to their Kickstarter campaign. Very excited for that one!
But that's all for now. Next I'll mount the camera and get some video from it!
