ZodiusInfuser
Member
Hi All,
First I want to say I absolutely love the Teensy family of boards! Got my first during my PhD studies at university where I needed the robots I was building to communicate via CAN bus. Since then I have used Teensy's in many projects ranging from a USB keyboard to WiFi controlled Christmas lights!
I wanted to post about an idea I have for a robot controller board. See, 6 or so years ago I built myself a hexapod robot inspired by the creations coming out of the old Lynxmotion forums. As you can see in the video below, I was able to get it built and walking forward, but unfortunately my PhD studies started shortly after this so I never got around to finishing it.
Now my studies are over with and I've been in employment for a while, I thought this new year would be a good chance for me to revisit this old project. Of course a lot has changed in these past years. Not only have I forgotten how the code works, both the Teensy and Raspberry Pi are now a thing. So rather than try and get the hexapod's current Arduino Mega + ARC-32 servo controller combo working again, I had the idea of making my own robot/servo controller instead. This would be powered by a Teensy 3.5/6 doing both the IK and gait generation, and connect to a Raspberry PI 3 for receiving high-level commands. Also, I have several other ideas that could benefit from such a robot controller, and maybe if I add enough connections to it other people would be interested in it too.
That is why I am posting here. Does this community have any interest in such a board, and if so any suggestions on what features to include and how I may include them? I know that several members have created breakout boards in the past, such as this one by KurtE (who I remember from the Lynxmotion days), so it would be great to hear their ideas and about any challenges they faced when creating their boards.
The features needed by the board for my hexapod are:
- 26 servo headers
- Screw terminals for motor power
- 6 ADC inputs for distance sensors
- 6 digital inputs for contact switches
- I2C connector for addressible RGB lighting (pre WS2812's)
- Serial to the Pi (maybe as a full 40pin HAT connection?)
- Some other GPIO I've probably forgotten about
One thing I would also like to do is modify all the servos to expose their potentiometer outputs, as it is really quite heavy and that extra feedback could help it compensate. That would need an additional 26 ADC inputs, which i'm not quite sure how to add at the moment.
The other robot ideas I have include a Fallout 4 Sentry bot, so would need PWM for driving 6 DC/Stepper/Brushless motors, and a "centipede" so would need support for more than 32 servos (maybe up to 128 using shift registers).
Thanks and I look forward to reading your thoughts!
First I want to say I absolutely love the Teensy family of boards! Got my first during my PhD studies at university where I needed the robots I was building to communicate via CAN bus. Since then I have used Teensy's in many projects ranging from a USB keyboard to WiFi controlled Christmas lights!
I wanted to post about an idea I have for a robot controller board. See, 6 or so years ago I built myself a hexapod robot inspired by the creations coming out of the old Lynxmotion forums. As you can see in the video below, I was able to get it built and walking forward, but unfortunately my PhD studies started shortly after this so I never got around to finishing it.
Now my studies are over with and I've been in employment for a while, I thought this new year would be a good chance for me to revisit this old project. Of course a lot has changed in these past years. Not only have I forgotten how the code works, both the Teensy and Raspberry Pi are now a thing. So rather than try and get the hexapod's current Arduino Mega + ARC-32 servo controller combo working again, I had the idea of making my own robot/servo controller instead. This would be powered by a Teensy 3.5/6 doing both the IK and gait generation, and connect to a Raspberry PI 3 for receiving high-level commands. Also, I have several other ideas that could benefit from such a robot controller, and maybe if I add enough connections to it other people would be interested in it too.
That is why I am posting here. Does this community have any interest in such a board, and if so any suggestions on what features to include and how I may include them? I know that several members have created breakout boards in the past, such as this one by KurtE (who I remember from the Lynxmotion days), so it would be great to hear their ideas and about any challenges they faced when creating their boards.
The features needed by the board for my hexapod are:
- 26 servo headers
- Screw terminals for motor power
- 6 ADC inputs for distance sensors
- 6 digital inputs for contact switches
- I2C connector for addressible RGB lighting (pre WS2812's)
- Serial to the Pi (maybe as a full 40pin HAT connection?)
- Some other GPIO I've probably forgotten about
One thing I would also like to do is modify all the servos to expose their potentiometer outputs, as it is really quite heavy and that extra feedback could help it compensate. That would need an additional 26 ADC inputs, which i'm not quite sure how to add at the moment.
The other robot ideas I have include a Fallout 4 Sentry bot, so would need PWM for driving 6 DC/Stepper/Brushless motors, and a "centipede" so would need support for more than 32 servos (maybe up to 128 using shift registers).
Thanks and I look forward to reading your thoughts!