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Robot Circuits
Robots:  #'s - D         E - O         P - S         T - Z


Last Updated: June 02, 2021 01:44 PM



Links to electronic circuits, electronic schematics and designs for engineers, hobbyists, students & inventors:

"Chloroplast" - Type 1 (Voltage Controlled) Solar Engine -  These designs are based on the Motorola MC34164-* micro power undervoltage sensing IC s.  They're pretty efficient, work at higher voltages than most solar engines, and can provide voltages for other logic circuits (say, a microprocessor).  This page hosts the original Chloroplast by Craig Maynard, as well as some Chloroplast variants by Wilf Rigter. __ Designed by Wilf Rigter

"MicroPower" - Type 1 (Voltage Controlled) Solar Engine -  Ken Huntington's fairly complex, but very efficient "micropower" solar engine design.  No 1381s or IC needed. __ Designed by Ken Huntington

12C508 IR Obstruction Detector -  Several Projects, scroll down.  This project is inspired by the DPRG iRPROX project.  They have a pretty good PCB layout and idea.  I would like to thank them for posting their project for all of us to see and learn from, I wouldn't have started PIC  programming without them, or at least not nearly as quickly come up to speed!  The pinout on my board allows either a five-wire or a four-wire connection to be made the former uses a disable line if desired.   __ Designed by dlc @ verinet.com

12-way Input/Output Interface  -  This interface is designed for use with a three axis robot arm based on stepper motors out of 5 1/4" drives.  The circuit uses two ULN2803 'drivers' controlled by logic ICs  to allow mutliple lines to be controlled at the same time. (Logic Circuit design by Ian Threlfo)   [ECAWA Robotics Special Interest Group]

1381-based - Type 1 (Voltage Controlled) Solar Engine -  Two simple solar engine designs using a 1381* voltage discriminator. __ Designed by Wilf Rigter

38-kHz IR LED -  infrared LEDs are commonly used for object detection in robots.  Blinking the LED on and off 38, 000 times a second improves long-range detection and reduces false triggers.  Pictures, comparisons, and a schematic demonstrate a simple, reliable, low-power 555 CMOS circuit.   __ Contact David Cook

4-transistor H-bridge -  An interesting 4-transistor H-bridge variant; this is cheap and easy to build, and best of all is "smokeless" (i.  e.  , no combination of inputs can cause the bridge to self-destruct).   __ Designed by Steve Bolt

555 Based IR Proximity Detector -  Scroll down for this project.     Sometimes you want a simple solution to a problem and you don't mind if your main controller has to do the work.  This iRPD requires the main robot processor to choose which side to look at, and requires it to "debounce" the results for reliably operation.  But, it still works really well without any complex program code. __ Designed by Dennis Clark

555 Based IR Proximity Detector -  Sometimes you want a simple solution to a problem and you don't mind if your main controller has to do the work.  This iRPD requires the main robot processor to choose which side to look at, and__ 

555-based solar engine - Type 2 (time-controlled) Solar Engines -  in March of 2003, Manfred Schaffran posted a solar engine design using a 555 timer IC .   Wilf Rigter simplified this circuit a bit, made it phototropic, and doubled it up to yield a photopopper design in a post later the same day.  I'vegot this design written up elsewhere in the library. __ Designed by  Manfred Schaffran & Wilf Rigter

6 Legged servo crawler robot -  using Atmel AVR controller (not complete)  __ Designed by Thomas Scherrer OZ2CPU

6-transistor H-bridge -  This issix transistor "Tilden style" H-bridge; while not as old asoriginal "basic H-bridge, " this goes "way back, " and is basis for many BEAM driver circuits __ Contact Bruce Robinson

90S2313 AVR Robot Board -  The Atmel AVR series are very good microcontrollers with quite a rich instruction set, rich enough that lots of folks have good compilers for them so we don't have to learn their assembler.  A very rich compiler available is the BASCOM/AVR compiler from MCS Electronics.  I'veused this compiler for prototyping the software on my 90S2313 robot board for two reasons: One, it has a very rich command syntax; Two, its free in its demo version!  The demo version only supports 2K of instruction memory, other than that it is completely uncrippled.  The 90S2313 has 2K of instruction memory - See the pattern? __ Designed by Dennis Clark

A 555-based solar engine - Type 2 (time-controlled) Solar Engines -  in March of 2003, Manfred Schaffran posted a solar engine design using a 555 timer IC .   Wilf Rigter simplified this circuit a bit, made it phototropic, and doubled it up to yield a photopopper design in a post later the same day.  I'vegot this design written up elsewhere in the library. __ Designed by  Manfred Schaffran & Wilf Rigter

A Simple Circuit effective whisker bumper -  We all have need of that last line of defense when the SONAR glitches, the iRPD doesn't and our bot is on a collision course with a table leg.  That last defense against re-kitting is a bumper.  I have made a few from microswitches, miniswitches and other things - usually they work, sometimes they need too much force to work and "ugh" collision.  This example is another type of sensor that doesn't use a switch, its parts are super cheap and it works just great.  its a "whisker" bumper.  Let me show you some pictures and describe what is going on, a picture is worth a thousand words in this kind__ 

An IR Encoder/Decoder paIR made with PIC12C508's for each of them -  Scroll down for this project.      I volunteered to turn a friend of mine's Warhammer 40K imperial Rhino personel carrier into a remote controlled item.  Little did I understand the undertaking that I had agreed on!  My requirements for this project were that the transmitter and receiver had to be a single chip design, done all in software.  I succeeded.  The receiver chip uses a Panasonic 4602 38KHz receiver and that's it for external components.  it has the serial input (GP3) , two RC hobby servo outputs (GP0/GP1) and three digital outputs (GP2, 4, 5).  Here is the code for the receiver chip.  it is a bit of a specialty in that the digital outputs are actually "momentary contact" type outputs because I only needed a pulse to go out to trigger a cheap sound board I got from a $6 toy!  I don't even use the GP2 output in this design.  The receiver uses 4 NIC d 115MAH cells, the largest set I could fit into the Rhino!  __ Designed by Dennis Clark

Appetizer Robot -  This solar-powered robot is built with a BEAM design.  Small dc motors are driven by a capacitor and steered by photodiodes.  Photographs, links, a video, and a schematic are provided.   __ Contact David Cook

AT89C52-Based Robocar -  A robot can be defined as an electro-mechanical system with the capability of sensing its environment, manipulating it and acting according to the preprogrammed sequence.  it is a machine that appears...__ Electronics Projects for You

Audio Detector for starting robots -  The following circuit can be used to detect those annoying piezo whistles that one can get from Radio Shack.  For the Trinity Home Fire Fighting Contest, additional points accrue when the robot is started by a sound similar to a fire alarm.  The actual whistle is specified as a particular Radio Shack piezo element, but the following circuit should be tunable across a wide range of pitches.   __ Designed by Larry Barello

Automated Line Following Robot -  Line-following robots with pick-and-placement capabilities are commonly used in manufacturing plants.  These move on a specified path to pick the components from specified locations and place them on desired locations.  Basically, a...__ Electronics Projects for You

Bargraph 101 LED & Atmel AVR -  with C code example __ Designed by Thomas Scherrer OZ2CPU

Battery chargers -  Handy for non-solar BEAMbots (particularly ones that use rechargeable batteries in "non-standard" shapes and sizes)  __ Designed by Ian Bernstein

Beam Robot -  PIC  Project  Most of the BEAM robots I'veseen on the net are using hardware analog electronics.  it seemed that a PIC  would work very well for this kind of project.  Very little extra circuitry is needed to do both forword and backword walking sequences along with a few other tricks.  The PIC 16F818 has a lot of features that work well in this situation.   __ Designed by Luhan Monat-Mesa Arizona

BEAM Stepper -  74AC240-based circuit to drive small bipolar stepper motors (e.  g.  , ones in floppy drives)  __ Designed by Wilf Rigter

BEAM Stepper drive -  The 74AC240 stepper driver works by alternately enabling each half of the buffer.  Only one half can be enabled at a time.  Let's assume that the top half of the driver is enabled.  U1A & U1B along with R8, C1, and the input protection resistor R7 form a square wave oscillator.  The outputs of U1A & U1B directly drive one coil of a bipolar stepper motor.   __ Designed by Duane Johnson and Wilf Rigter

Bench Power Supply -  i made from an old PC power supply.     __ Designed by DC Reagan

Bipolar 20mA current-loop driver for robotic valves & other applications -  01/06/14  EDN Design Ideas:  Drive bipolar current loops using a single supply - This Design idea drives the ±20mA current loops that are often used to control two-way proportional pneumatic or hydraulic servo valves in high power robotics applications.  Most current drivers are capable of driving unipolar outputs only.  Bipolar current drivers often require negative supply voltages.   Design by Clive Bolton

Bird Sound Generator -  A few years back, Wilf Rigter posted this circuit for making bird-like sounds __ Designed by Wilf Rigter

Bridge head -  The LDR's were hand-picked.  Got two packages of them from Radio Shack, looking for at least two pairs of similar parts.  Then added wire-wrap pin sockets, to the circuit, so that the LDR's could be plugged in.  Currently, the 0.33UF cap is not being used on my B-Head's.  I made a long J-hook from "Jumbo Paper Clips", attached it to the motor shaft, and then hung it from my rear-view mirror so it can "see the lights" __ Designed by Paul T. Barton

Bugdozer Autonomous Mini-Sumo Robot -  Based on an MC68HC908GP32 microcontroller, this pulse-width modulated 18-volt dc scoop-on-wheels saw combat in November 2000.  Using two 38-kilohertz infrared sensors and 4-front/1-rear near-red phototransistors, Bugdozer tries to push opponents out of the ring while staying within the white borders herself.   __ Contact David Cook

Build the Picman Programmable Robot -  A PIC  microcontroller lets you program in the commands.__ SiliconChip

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Robots:  #'s - D         E - O         P - S         T - Z


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