Slight delay

 Ok, school and work have been slowing me down a lot lately but I've managed to assemble more things. I got the camera system in the mail last week and briefly tried it out. Here's the links for the camera and transmitter. Hopefully I'll get to test the half mile range sometime this week. But it looks good so far and hopefully I'll have some video for ya.
 I found and joined a website called GrabCad that has saved me a bunch of time of drawing the Arduino boards. So all I had to do was quickly draw the servos and camera for this latest drawing:

 I'm still working on the camera arm as well as the front arm. I'm leaning towards a metal detector system instead of an electromagnet for the rock sampling part of the front arm. I really have no intentions of collecting the rocks so I guess I really don't need to try and pick them up. Just sending a signal back saying how metallic the rock is, would be just fine. And actually now that I think of it, that would be a bit more informative than simply trying to pick up the rock.

 Let's see, what else have I done so far.... Oh a video!

 Since the suspension is taking a lot longer than I thought, I just glued the motors and wheels on so I could at least test code and stuff while I'm waiting for a laser cutter and/or a 3D printer like this one that I'm currently a backer for. If all goes well, I'll have my very own desktop 3D printer by April. *Fingers crossed*

So that's about all I've got so far. I'm still working on the solar panels and monitoring the voltage. Hopefully I can do that soon since the sun is now starting to go away for the winter. I'm off school for 3 days this week so hopefully I'll make some serious progress during this time. Stay tuned!

A brief update:

 So I haven't been able to do much these past couple of weeks. My work schedule changed and I'm back in school now too until June so progress has slowed a lot. I did manage to put a donation button up just in case any of you highly interested folk would like to see more action, you can feel free to donate and possibly even relieve me of the burden of working. (fingers crossed)
 All I've been able to do so far is draw on Inventor some more.

 Kind of trying to figure out what would work best for the suspension parts and eventual springs or torsion bars. This is all I have so far. I'm thinking .080 thick polystyrene to make the suspension arms out of. That way they can be strong yet hallow so I can run the motor wires through. I'm also thinking of using the bearings I got for my, now shelved, drive system and put those in all the hinge points for better stability.
 The Hack Factory should be getting a new laser cutter this month so hopefully I can pop in there and use it to cut this polystyrene. Otherwise I'll need to spend a lot of time with a dremel or jig saw cutting out all the pieces.
 It's so hard knowing that all I need are these last parts made to start test driving but I don't have the time to do it. Very frustrating. It'll happen though. The good side of this is that the more I wait, the better my ideas get.

By golly, I think this just might work!

Over the weekend I received the Virtuabotix temperature/humidity sensor and plugged it into the Arduino like the included diagram shows, downloaded the library from the Virtuabotix website, and right away I started getting temperature, humidity, and dew point readings. This little gadget will come in handy for monitoring the inside of the rover so I know the electronics are safe. I imagine in sunlight, the inside of the rover will be like the inside of a car so knowing how hot it gets in there, I can decide whether I need to use a bit of Mylar to keep the sun out or if it's not really needed. And also, knowing the temperature inside at night will be good so I can protect against dew build  up on the circuits.

 Since I was now getting information back from my rover, I decided it would be nice to know how many volts I have left on the battery. So I googled the code for such things and actually found the code on Arduino's website. 4 lines of code and a wire running to analog I/O port number 0. Since I'm dealing with a 10 volt battery and the I/O port can only handle 5 volts, I made a simple voltage divider circuit so the port only sees half the voltage and then I tweaked the code a little so it reports back 10 volts instead of 5. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of this set up before I took it apart to work on other things. But I'm sure you'll see it in action soon enough.

 I went out and got the solar panels I needed from Radio Shack and tested those on Sunday. Here I have a picture of a quick set up to take the 11.5 volts generated from the solar panels down to under 5 so I can monitor that voltage as well.

 I also received the ultrasonic range finder in the mail the other day too. I really haven't played with this yet but it should come in handy later for obstacle avoidance when I finally get this project rolling.

 Which brings me to my favorite part. I got the last 4 motors in the mail yesterday. I soldered on some wires, quickly hot glued them in place with some wheels attached, added lines of code for the new motors, and got a few tests done this morning.

 Yes I'm using a sugar dispenser for a test stand. It was the only thing tall and skinny enough around for such a quick test. But anyway, in the video you can see the Amps measured from the battery. I switch between high and low speeds to see the changes in Amp rating. 220 mAhs for all 6 motors on high! This means I can drive around for, ideally, 7 hours on a charge. Once I get the camera and servos in place, that number will likely drop quite a bit though. 

Now of course I had to set it on the floor just to see what would happen. 

 It kind of reminds me of when I was a little kid trying out ice skates for the first time. Obviously I'm not going to simply hot glue motors on and expect them to stay put. So now the next phase in this project is the suspension. I'm thinking hollow tubes for suspension arms, to hide the wires in, and some kind of torsion spring to allow for movement. More on this later. Stay tuned!

A successful drive-motor test!

Nothing too fancy here. Just a couple of my new motors hot glued on with some wheels attached. But I was able to prove that just 2 of these little motors with their gear reduction systems are powerful enough to move the rover.

 So naturally after this test, I ordered 4 more motors from Amazon. And also added a temperature/humidity sensor and a distance sensor for when I finally get this thing moving and outside.
 Also since I had it moving back and forth on the floor, I thought I'd test out my speed settings. In this quick video, you can see me switching from low speed to high speed and back to low. (Sorry I wasn't really watching where I was aiming the camera on this one. Big pet peeve of mine! But you get the idea.)

 I can range the motor inputs from 0 to 210. Low is currently set at 50 and high is set at 200. I'm thinking low needs to be even slower so maybe I'll drop the number down to 20. But that can wait until I get all 6 motors properly attached.

 I'm also leaning towards this Autopilot so the rover can follow GPS way points instead of relying solely on commands from my laptop. It's a bit 'spendy' but this is kind of the ultimate goal with this project so it is a little bit necessary. Otherwise I can go with this GPS tracker to simply send coordinates back and I can plot them on Google Earth for some project "cool factor" points. This option is much cheaper but really has no functionality since the wireless range on the Arduino's XBEE system is about 300ft, which means I'll be able to physically see where it's at.

 Expensive parts are starting to lead me to maybe look into crowd funding for this project. I think total cost of parts, both used and not used, and tools that I needed for this project, is around $500. And I still need the $100 camera system, solar panels, suspension parts, some kind of parachute system, and an entire guided rocket to build. Sooo... next on my to do list is to look into crowd funding websites. Soo.. Stay tuned!  

A maker's dilemma

 For the past couple of weeks I've been working on a prototype for the drive gear system. With the laser at The Hack Factory not cooperating (I'm told a really nice one will be in the shop some time in Sept.), I had to resort to some old school model making. I printed the outline of what I needed on a piece of paper and stuck it to a sheet of acrylic and cut out my pieces with a band saw. Then had to do some sanding but eventually I got this:

 All the pieces I need to put this gearbox together! So I started putting it together and filed the holes big enough for the bearings and motor and lined everything up. I was reluctant to actually glue everything together so I used some double sided tape and hot glue to produce this:

Then I added the motor and slapped on some wheels just to see if the gear system was strong enough for one to pull the whole thing along.

I started out with a simple test to see if it would even work. So I put it on a piece of tupperware and sent it the drive signal.

  And it actually worked! A bit louder than I thought it would be too. After this video it started to skip some teeth and sounded like the battery was going to die. I think the motor got warm enough to soften the hot glue I had holding it in place and caused it to move away from the gear that it was so perfectly meshing with. I also decided that the skipping wasn't horrible so it was time for a floor test. No video of this however since it didn't actually go anywhere. I didn't think it was necessary to glue the main gear onto the axle for the test so of course it slipped and there for did not turn the wheel. Oops..

 So with the battery sounding like it was going to die, I did some electrical testing. The battery was holding strong at 10 volts so I switched to measuring the amps and was a little shocked to see that the motor and gear system, along with the arduino boards, was drawing 750 mAhs. Sooo.. I figure with all six in place, my little 1600 mAh battery would last about 15 minutes at best. Judging by the sound of the motor, it would be far less. 

 I ended up ordering a couple of motors with their own gear reduction system on them. $15 a piece so not too bad. But they were 6 volt motors so I wasn't sure how they'd work.

 So my dilemma is that they do work! Very well actually! They're super quiet and total draw from this and the arduino boards is only about 150mAh! That's about 10mah from the motor! I could drive all day with all 6 of these hooked up. So I guess my dilemma is kind of a no brainer but I still feel like I put so much time and effort into that gear reduction system, it would be a shame not to use it. I guess we'll see how much power these little guys have once I figure out a way to mount them and attach the wheels. Perhaps tomorrow I'll rig up a quick attachment and see if the 2 motors I have will be powerful enough to move everything.

  Also, on the C++ side of things, I figured out pretty easily how to send information back from the Arduino so that I know I'm getting a good signal and also what command I sent it. I also tried some code so that I can control the speed of the motors as well. So by pressing numbers 1 thru 4, I can give it 4 different speed settings (or as many as I want I suppose).

 Hopefully by this weekend I'll get this thing moving and more motors ordered. I'm 4 months behind but finally I might have some real movement!

Virtual Progress!

 Ok so I haven't made much actual progress in the past couple of weeks but I have made some pretty big strides in the virtual world. Still teaching myself 3D AutoCAD again, I managed to come up with this drawing for the 6 gear boxes:

 Since AutCAD doesn't use my graphics card, I had to draw the gears as discs so things move smoothly. When I was all done with this, I put together a 2D file for the laser cutter at The Hack Factory.

 These are all the parts I'd need for one gear box made out of .090 thick acrylic. It should have been a simple upload and cut sort of thing but to my dismay, I drove a half hour to get to there and found out the laser cutter was not working properly and also that the software to run the thing is some horrible program called MoshiDraw. No good came of this and so now.. I wait...

 In the mean time I've been teaching myself AutoDesk Inventor via Youtube videos and a free student copy. It took some getting use to and a lot of frustration but I think I've figured it out for now. So here's a video of the gear assembly in action..

I managed to figure out how to combine parts and drive the motor gear to, intern, drive the other gears along with the wheel. Pretty cool stuff. And now, today, I quickly drew up the box and suspension arms which also have a bit of animation to them too. Unfortunately I was having trouble mirroring my gearboxes so I could have all 6 in place. Something about not being able to copy holes and constraints so I'll work on that a bit more. So this is what I've got so far:

 Sorry for the screwy phone pic. I'm in a hurry to upload this and run off to work. Hope you enjoy my progress and hopefully I'll get some parts laser-ed out soon!

A bit of a vacation

Ok so I took a few weeks off to do some amazing trips with Cristin to Space Fest in Tucson and then to Alaska to visit a friend. Before we left I did manage to do a quick test of the motor drive system though.

This was actually a test of 2 different motors with 2 different gear ratios. I had ordered 6 of those tiny motors I posted about earlier and when I tested one of them, it seemed a bit weak so I grabbed a motor out of a little ZipZap truck, got a spur gear that meshed with it, and put it on the right front wheel. The rest of the little truck is actually seen in the video holding up the back end of the rover for the test. The left front wheel is driven by one of the little motors I ordered and it's corresponding spur gear. As the video shows, the little motors barely have enough power to get it rolling but when it does get going, it looked like it could go way faster than I want. I calculated it out, if I had all 6 motors on this thing and got it rolling, it would reach a speed of around 3 to 4 mph. So a fast walk. But no power for climbing hills or little rocks and I think for how light it is, 3 or 4 mph could be dangerous. Soooo...
 I ordered some new gears to put between the motor and the wheel for a little gear reduction. With some new calculations, the wheels went from 520 rpm's to a mere 50. That's a nice 31 feet per minute with hopefully a bunch more power. (I haven't gotten the gears hooked up yet)

 This is as far as I've gotten before the great vacation of 2013. As you can see, I also ordered bearings because I didn't like how wobbly the wheels were and also ordered some foam airplane wheels with tread on them. I currently have all the parts I think I need to get this thing rolling. I just have to draw up some mounting brackets for the gear-motor-wheel assembly and then make a trip to The Hack Factory to use the laser cutter to cut out my parts. Almost there. Just need to sit down and do it!

As for the great vacation of 2013, +Cristin Finnigan and I just got back a few days ago from the Alaska leg of our tour where we visited our Iditarod mushing friend, Jodi Bailey. Her and her husband Dan were such great hosts! Jodi took us out four wheeling on some state trails, set us up with a tour at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to see how they do their remote sensing of volcanoes and wild fires, showed us around AlaskaLand and the Yukon Quest office, and then had a great Solstice party where she invited wide range of folks for us to meet. These people ranged from a born and raised trapper, to goat farmers, to post doctorates at the university. The university folks told us how to get in with a research job while working on our masters and eventual doctorates. Very intriguing idea that we are now taking into some serious consideration. Anyways, here's some pics from Alaska:

Out four wheeling

A giant model of old towns in Alaska

An old gold dredge

 Apparently all the really good pictures were on her camera. But you get the idea. 

As for Space Fest, we traveled down to Tucson a few weeks ago to go meet some NASA astronauts and learn about how space travel is changing with all the new companies getting involved. We even met Geoff Notkin of The Science Channel's Meteorite Men who kind of took us under his wing for an evening of music and travel stories. While we were there, we got to meet Fred Hiase of Apollo 13, Dick Gordon and Alan Bean of Apollo 12, Ed Mitchell of Apollo 14, and Cristin found a friend in JoAnn Carr who was married to Sky Lab astronaut Gerald Carr. Here's some pics from that event. Again, all the good pics are on her camera.

Some of the Astronauts at their booths

More Astronauts and non Astronauts

A view from a walkway at the resort

Dick Gordon and Alan Bean having some fun with a really tall guy.

The Apollo panel hosted by Dr. Brian Cox

 So that's it. Now that I'm caught up on the blog and home for a while, not to mention full of inspiration from all the wonderful people we've met over the past couple weeks, I think I'll get this silly little rover of mine up and moving. Stay tuned for more progress...