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Pololu Blog (Page 42)
Welcome to the Pololu Blog, where we provide updates about what we and our customers are doing and thinking about. This blog used to be Pololu president Jan Malášek’s Engage Your Brain blog; you can view just those posts here.
Popular tags: community projects new products raspberry pi arduino more…
Pololu Labor Day weekend sale
We are having a big Labor Day sale throughout the weekend, with 15% discounts on over 700 products when you use the coupon code LABORDAY15. Note that we will be closed on Monday, so orders placed after 2 PM Pacific Time on Friday, September 4 will be shipped on Tuesday, September 8.
For more information, including all of the sale items, see the sale page.
Raspberry Pi Solar Tracker
Jay Doscher posted on his blog at Polyideas.com about his 2-axis solar tracker designed to provide the optimal amount of power output with a portable setup. In the build, Jay uses a Raspberry Pi A+ topped with our Dual MC33926 Motor Driver for Raspberry Pi to control the motion of the system, which is accomplished using a Concentric 4″ linear actuator with feedback. In lieu of a GPS unit, the tracker uses hard-coded longitude and latitude coordinates with Pysolar, an open-source Python library, to calculate the sun’s predicted position. The system keeps the solar panel pointed at the calculated position with the help of a Razor IMU from SparkFun. The video above is time lapse footage of a mechanical test of the system that shows the unit tracking the sun (although it is indoors).
In the picture above, you can see the Raspberry Pi and dual MC33926 driver board on the left and the IMU on the right. The Dual MC33926 Driver for Raspberry Pi fits on top of the Raspberry Pi mainboard, eliminating a lot of wiring and making it easy to use while also leaving the setup looking clean and organized. Additionally, the Dual MC33926 Driver for Raspberry Pi provides a set of three through-holes where an appropriate voltage regulator can be conveniently connected, allowing the motor supply to also power the Raspberry Pi. You can see one of our D24V10F5 switching step-down regulators mounted on top of the dual MC33926 driver board to serve this purpose in the picture above as well.
This project was also a 2015 Hackaday Prize entry and made it to the quarterfinals!
For more information about this project, see Jay’s blog post, which has additional photos and details including a parts list and links to his code.
Zippy: an Arduino Nano-based balancing robot
Zippy is an RC balancing robot created by Larry McGovern. It uses an Arduino Nano to read pulses from an RC receiver and accelerometer and gyroscope data from an MPU6050. After processing that information, the Nano commands two ST motor driver development boards, which each control a 30:1 37D mm gearmotor with encoder. The whole system is powered by a 3S LiPo (brand: Zippy, of course!). You can watch Zippy scoot around on pavement below:
In the video description, Larry mentions that he modeled Zippy after the Balanduino robot, but we would like to highlight one noticeable difference: he used his own pair of wheels, which are mated to the output shaft of his gearmotors with our 6mm scooter wheel adapters! I had a major role in designing these, so on a personal note, it is especially exciting to see someone get a good use out of them. (It also looks like our stamped aluminum L brackets are used to mount the motors.)
New products: Assembled Zumo 32U4 robots
Customers have been requesting an assembled version of our Zumo 32U4 robot kit ever since we released it in March, so it makes me very happy to be able to announce that we now have three pre-assembled Zumo 32U4 robots to choose from:
The three options differ only in their motors, and while the speed and torque vary across the three gear ratios, the peak output power is the same for all of them. You could maximize speed (i.e. 50:1 motors) or torque (100:1 motors), or perhaps you are looking for something in the middle (75:1 motors). The following table compares the gear ratio in more detail, with the first four columns showing specifications of the gearmotors by themselves and the last showing the measured top speed of a Zumo chassis loaded to a weight of 500 g:
Micro Metal Gearmotor |
Free-Run Speed @ 6V |
Stall Torque @ 6V |
Stall Current @ 6V |
Top Zumo Speed @ 6V and 500g |
|
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50:1 HP | 625 RPM | 15 oz·in | 1600 mA | 40 in/s | (100 cm/s) |
75:1 HP | 400 RPM | 22 oz·in | 1600 mA | 25 in/s | (65 cm/s) |
100:1 HP | 320 RPM | 30 oz·in | 1600 mA | 20 in/s | (50 cm/s) |
These three gearmotors are the ones we consider best suited for typical Zumo 32U4 applications (and many of our example programs are tuned to work with 75:1 HP motors), but we have many other gear ratios available that you can use when assembling the kit version of the Zumo 32U4 robot.
At this point, you might be wondering why it took so long for us to make an assembled Zumo 32U4 robot. Well, we have been working on several improvements to the Zumo 32U4 ever since releasing the kit, and we wanted to have them all in place before coming out with these more finished assembled products. The first improvement was to the sprockets, which changed from white with solid hubs to black with spokes. These new sprockets fit better on the motor shafts and make assembly and disassembly easier, and we think they just look cooler! They might also help you hide from your opponent’s IR sensors, but the color is of course no use against other sensing technologies like sonar.
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The second improvement was to make a new component to hold and shield the IR LEDs used by the proximity sensor system. Without this, the LEDs are just supported by their leads and shielded by a piece of heat shrink (see the pictures above), and we wanted something better. Now the kit and assembled versions include a plastic LED holder that mounts directly to the front blade:
Finally, we have improved the blade. They are now stamped rather than laser-cut, and we have added cutouts around the general-purpose mounting holes so that they can be hand-bent to new angles as desired, independent of the blade angle. This new blade also has the chassis mounting tabs pre-bent to the appropriate angle, so that’s one less step required during assembly of the kit.
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And speaking of the kit, we still strongly encourage people to get the Zumo 32U4 kit and build it themselves. We designed the Zumo 32U4 to be a starting point, and building it yourself will make you more comfortable with customizing and enhancing it. Making it yourself will also make it a little more meaningful when your robot triumphs over the competition!
S3 Pilot board robot
Forum member spiked3, whom we previously posted about, has shared another robot with a custom laser cut chassis. The new robot uses his own custom Arduino shield, the S3-Pilot, which has sockets for an IMU and two of our MC33926 Motor Driver Carriers.
Custom Arduino shield created by forum member spiked3. |
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The MC33926 drivers control two 37D motors with encoders, and the encoder signals are processed by the Arduino. The robot also includes a lidar, PIXY Cam, and Raspberry Pi. The on-board IMU and encoders allow the robot to keep track of where it is and what direction it is facing, so spiked3 was able to implement a high-level interface for the robot that accepts movement commands like “go forward three meters” or “turn a certain number of degrees to the right”.
You can find out more about this robot and see some videos of it being tested on spiked3’s blog.
Cable for Sharp GP2Y0A51SK0F analog distance sensors now available
We are now finally carrying a cable for the Sharp GP2Y0A51SK0F Analog Distance Sensor 2-15cm. The GP2Y0A51SK0F, our shortest-range analog distance sensor, has a compact package with a unique JST ZH-style connector, so this cable will not work with any of our other distance sensors. The cable is 12 inches (30 cm) long, with wires that you can cut and terminate as necessary for your project.
For more information, see the product page.
Paul's Wixel-based line following robot: Two Point Four
Two Point Four was my entry in the LVBots 2015 line following competition, originally built for our 2013 contest but significantly rebuilt since then. I designed it to be simple, low-power, and lightweight, starting with its 2×AAA, 2.4 V nominal power supply, from which it gets its name. Continued…
New product: A-Star 32U4 Robot Controller with Raspberry Pi Bridge
I am excited to announce our new A-Star 32U4 Robot Controller LV with Raspberry Pi Bridge, a general-purpose robot controller based on Atmel’s ATmega32U4 microcontroller.
This new robot controller is the latest model in our A-Star line of Arduino-compatible USB microcontroller boards. We started with the A-Star 32U4 Micro and have been gradually expanding the line, adding peripherals and various form-factor and voltage options, with the goal of eventually replacing our older Orangutan robot controllers. The Zumo 32U4 was a major step in that direction, since its controller board is essentially an A-Star 32U4 plus extra peripherals for motor control and sensing. But while the Zumo 32U4 is a complete robot kit, this board is for people who want to design their own robot.
The A-Star 32U4 Robot Controller LV includes most of the features of the A-Star 32U4 Prime LV, including an Arduino-compatible USB bootloader, an efficient step-up/step-down regulator, and handy peripherals like the buzzer and buttons, and it expands on the A-Star line by adding a pair of Texas Instruments DRV8838 1.8 A motor drivers, the same motor drivers as on the Zumo. All of the AVR’s GPIO lines are broken out, and we have included handy power and ground rails so you can easily connect lots of things like servos and sensors:
This board is well-suited for small robots that would have otherwise used an Orangutan controller like the SV-328 or SVP-1284. While we did not include an LCD like on the Orangutans, you can get far better display, monitoring, or data logging by making use of the Raspberry Pi connection, which I will talk about next.
Using the robot controller with a Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is a great board for an embedded project that needs serious computational power or connectivity. We have released a couple of Raspberry Pi motor driver boards over the past year, which give you a way to get started exploring robotics with your Raspberry Pi. But robotics projects tend to use a lot of analog sensors, timing-sensitive devices like servos, and other peripherals that are not compatible with the limited I/O capabilities of the Raspberry Pi. These types of things are what microcontrollers are designed for, so you can do a lot more if you pair your Raspberry Pi with a complete microcontroller board.
That’s why instead of using the standard Arduino form factor like the Prime, we built the A-Star 32U4 Robot Controller LV to double as a Raspberry Pi HAT:
A-Star 32U4 Robot Controller LV with Raspberry Pi Bridge on a Raspberry Pi Model B+. |
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The Robot Controller fits on top of a Raspberry Pi A+/B+/2, powers the Pi, and connects to it as an I²C slave device, giving you a bidirectional channel of communication between the two processors. We have broken out all of the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi, and there are a few general-purpose level-shifters included on the board to help you experiment with other communications protocols or interface other hardware to your system. We even include the EEPROM required by the HAT specification, though we have not found it to be particularly useful – we ship it blank and unlocked for you to experiment with.
For more information about the A-Star 32U4 Robot Controller LV, or to order, see the product page. You can also check out our open-source A-Star 32U4 Arduino library, which provides easy access to the main features of the Robot Controller, including its motor drivers; we will be adding examples showing I²C communication with the Raspberry Pi soon.
New products: 12V versions of the 25D mm metal gearmotors
Our 25D mm metal gearmotors are now available with 12 V motors in three power levels: High-Power (HP 12V) (5.5 A stall), Medium-Power (MP 12V) (2.1 A stall), and Low-Power (LP 12V) (1.1 A stall). The new 12 V LP motor can deliver approximately the same power as its 6 V counterpart, but since the voltage is doubled, it only requires half the current to do so, which means you can control it with lower-current, higher-voltage motor drivers like the DRV8801 or MAX14870 motor driver carriers. At their respective nominal voltages, the 12V HP motor has nearly the same free-run speed as the 6V HP motor, but it produces approximately twice the torque, which in turn means approximately double the output power. The 12V MP motors fall nicely between the 12V LP and HP options, offering a significantly more power than the LPs without the large current draw of the HPs. All five motor variants are the same size, which makes it easy to swap one for another if your design requirements change.
As with our original 6 V options, we have paired these new motors with a variety of gearboxes spanning gear ratios from 4.4:1 through 378:1. The result is 26 new versions, bringing our total selection of 25D mm metal gearmotors to more than 50 options. Unfortunately, we do not have encoder options for the 12 V motors yet, but we should have those later this year.
Rated Voltage |
Motor Type | Stall Current @ Rated Voltage |
No-Load Speed @ Rated Voltage |
Approximate Stall Torque @ Rated Voltage |
With Encoder |
Without Encoder |
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6 V | high-power (HP) |
6.5 A | 9800 RPM | 2 oz-in | 1:1 HP 6V w/encoder | |
2200 RPM | 8 oz-in | 4.4:1 HP 6V w/encoder | 4.4:1 HP 6V | |||
1000 RPM | 17 oz-in | 9.7:1 HP 6V w/encoder | 9.7:1 HP 6V | |||
480 RPM | 36 oz-in | 20.4:1 HP 6V | ||||
285 RPM | 60 oz-in | 34:1 HP 6V w/encoder | 34:1 HP 6V | |||
210 RPM | 80 oz-in | 47:1 HP 6V w/encoder | 47:1 HP 6V | |||
130 RPM | 130 oz-in | 75:1 HP 6V w/encoder | 75:1 HP 6V | |||
100 RPM | 160 oz-in | 99:1 HP 6V w/encoder | 99:1 HP 6V | |||
57 RPM | 260 oz-in | 172:1 HP 6V | ||||
6 V | low-power (LP) |
2.4 A | 6100 RPM | 1 oz-in | 1:1 LP 6V w/encoder | |
1400 RPM | 5 oz-in | 4.4:1 LP 6V | ||||
630 RPM | 11 oz-in | 9.7:1 LP 6V w/encoder | 9.7:1 LP 6V | |||
300 RPM | 24 oz-in | 20.4:1 LP 6V | ||||
180 RPM | 40 oz-in | 34:1 LP 6V w/encoder | 34:1 LP 6V | |||
130 RPM | 50 oz-in | 47:1 LP 6V w/encoder | 47:1 LP 6V | |||
82 RPM | 85 oz-in | 75:1 LP 6V w/encoder | 75:1 LP 6V | |||
62 RPM | 110 oz-in | 99:1 LP 6V | ||||
36 RPM | 170 oz-in | 172:1 LP 6V w/encoder | 172:1 LP 6V | |||
27 RPM | 220 oz-in | 227:1 LP 6V | ||||
16 RPM | 250 oz-in | 378:1 LP 6V | ||||
12 RPM | 300 oz-in | 499:1 LP 6V | ||||
12 V | high-power (HP) |
5.5 A | 2200 RPM | 23 oz-in | 4.4:1 HP 12V | |
1000 RPM | 44 oz-in | 9.7:1 HP 12V | ||||
480 RPM | 85 oz-in | 20.4:1 HP 12V | ||||
285 RPM | 120 oz-in | 34:1 HP 12V | ||||
210 RPM | 165 oz-in | 47:1 HP 12V | ||||
130 RPM | 240 oz-in | 75:1 HP 12V | ||||
100 RPM | 300 oz-in | 99:1 HP 12V | ||||
12 V | medium-power (MP) |
2.1 A | 1750 RPM | 11 oz-in | 4.4:1 MP 12V | |
800 RPM | 22 oz-in | 9.7:1 MP 12V | ||||
375 RPM | 42 oz-in | 20.4:1 MP 12V | ||||
225 RPM | 63 oz-in | 34:1 MP 12V | ||||
165 RPM | 85 oz-in | 47:1 MP 12V | ||||
100 RPM | 125 oz-in | 75:1 MP 12V | ||||
77 RPM | 165 oz-in | 99:1 MP 12V | ||||
45 RPM | 250 oz-in | 172:1 MP 12V | ||||
34 RPM | 320 oz-in | 227:1 MP 12V | ||||
12 V | low-power (LP) |
1.1 A | 1250 RPM | 8 oz-in | 4.4:1 LP 12V | |
570 RPM | 15 oz-in | 9.7:1 LP 12V | ||||
270 RPM | 29 oz-in | 20.4:1 LP 12V | ||||
160 RPM | 43 oz-in | 34:1 LP 12V | ||||
115 RPM | 60 oz-in | 47:1 LP 12V | ||||
75 RPM | 85 oz-in | 75:1 LP 12V | ||||
55 RPM | 115 oz-in | 99:1 LP 12V | ||||
32 RPM | 180 oz-in | 172:1 LP 12V | ||||
24 RPM | 240 oz-in | 227:1 LP 12V | ||||
15 RPM | 320 oz-in | 378:1 LP 12V |
Keep in mind that stalling or overloading gearmotors can greatly decrease their lifetimes and even result in immediate damage. For these gearboxes, the recommended upper limit for instantaneous torque is 200 oz-in (15 kg-cm), and we strongly advise keeping applied loads well under this limit. Stalls can also result in rapid (potentially on the order of seconds) thermal damage to the motor windings and brushes, especially for the versions that use high-power (HP) motors; a general recommendation for brushed DC motor operation is 25% or less of the stall current.
Brushed DC motor performance curves. |
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We list stall torques and currents for our gearmotors because these are end points of approximately linear DC motor performance curves shown above, and with them you can determine how the motor will behave as the voltage or load changes. For more information about how to generate specific performance curves for our gearmotors from the specifications we provide, see the first frequently asked question on any of the motor product pages.
Single-color packs of 3″ jumper wires
We have had a lot of requests for single-color packs of our 3″ Premium Jumper Wires and Wires with Pre-crimped Terminals, which until now have only been available in 50-piece rainbow packs like this. I am happy to announce that we have now added monochromatic 3″ packs in six colors: black, red, yellow, green, blue, and white. Multiply that by three different gender combinations (i.e. female-female, male-female, and male-male) and two styles (i.e. with or without housings), and that’s 36 new products in all!