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  • Author Author: dubbie
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My New Robot

dubbie

Just received my latest robot called Super Fighter, already assembled which is a change for me. I was attracted to this robot as it had a reasonable price, it looked good, it was supposed to walk (which it does - sort of), fire a 'laser', speak and most importantly, fires foam disks out the front.

 

 

It is quite an interesting design as most parts are independent of all others. The laser arm contains it's own motor and LED, the two legs have a motor in each foot, the head just contains LEDs and the infrared communications diodes and the foam disk mechanism fits into the chest. It would be relatively easy to add a motor to the second arm as this is not currently motorised, as well as adding sensors and what-knots to the head.

 

I have already disassembled it and it looks relatively easy to replace the existing controller board with an Arduino or similar. The supplied controller looks like it is some sort of custom single chip microprocessor and I doubt it could be reprogrammed. Most of the motors and LEDs seem to be driven directly from this custom PCB so if replaced it would be necessary to provide H bridge drivers or similar for three DC motors (two feet and one arm), plus transistors to drive the two motors used in the foam disk firing mechanism - these only rotate in one direction so do not need H bridge drivers.

 

There is some spare room inside the chest cavity for other sensors and radio communications. The current remote control system uses infrared. It might be necessary to remove the foam disk firing mechanism if more space were needed.

 

I wonder if I could use this for an entry into the Month of Robots competition?

 

Dubbie

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  • The laser arm....

    "You have 20 seconds to comply" image

     

    Good luck with your modifications Dubbie.

     

    Rod

  • in reply to 14rhb

    Rod,

     

    I'm going to have to work out how to do the recorded voices. It cannot be that difficult as many toys now seem to come with these.

     

    Dubbie

  • in reply to dubbie

    Dubbie,

    I hear you. Those breakout boards are really useful for one-offs but anything higher quantities gets expensive quick. And Sparkfun must be selling a ton of them, as the IC alone is US$8 in qty >250. There must be cheaper audio codecs out there with similar functions.

    Cheers,

    - Wolfgang.

  • in reply to dubbie

    I wonder if you could make something using a simple MCU that includes a DAC peripheral? It should be possible to make something reasonable as many simple PIC microcontrollers can manage 32MHz. If the audio was to not be changed after programming, and you only wanted a few seconds, it could reside in the program/flash memory. Reducing frequency range or bit resolution could also allow longer playback periods. [Please note, I have never done this before, so any experts at audio CODEC and the like please add comments ]

     

    Rod

  • in reply to dubbie

    Hi Dubbie,

    I have used a couple of different sound boards including this one from Adafruit.  If you want to try something less expensive there are JQ6500 boards from the usual suppliers of inexpensive products from China that play MP3 files - e.g. ebay, aliexpress.  There is a good description of how to use them, including a link to an Arduino library, here.  The one I have is the 16 pin version - video below demonstrates an Arduino Uno using it to play a "doorbell" MP3.  I have not tried the 28 pin version but it would hold many more files and have larger storage.

    I have not used this in a project yet.  Just hooked it up to see if I could get it working....

     

    Frank

  • in reply to fmilburn

    OK, found the other inexpensive one I have used - ISD1820.  It has the advantage that you can record directly to it but less capacity and lower quality.  Probably not as good for what you are considering...

  • in reply to fmilburn

    Frank,

     

    I have not heard of the JQ6500 so I will go and look this up. The problem I have been having is what keywords to use. I tried audio player and audio PCB but these just bring up MP3 players which are too expensive. I'll find something eventually. I hope.

     

    Dubbie

Comment Children
  • in reply to dubbie

      wrote:

     

    Frank,

     

    I have not heard of the JQ6500 so I will go and look this up. The problem I have been having is what keywords to use. I tried audio player and audio PCB but these just bring up MP3 players which are too expensive. I'll find something eventually. I hope.

     

    Dubbie

    Do you mean to record?  Audacity is widely used. The link I give above describes the utility to move the recorded MP3 onto the JQ65600 board. Audacity comes in most flavors, but the JQ6500 utility is only Windows I think. 

  • in reply to fmilburn

    Frank,

     

    I was really talking about the modules themselves - I did not express myself very well. Anyway, I have now purchased both of these types (JQ650 and ISD1820). The JQ6500 allows multiple audio clips to be controlled while the ISD1820 allows the recording and play back of a single clip (as far as I can tell) on a single module. This is also cheaper and easier to use, so both types have advantages. The ISD chips that I used, many years ago now, had the ability to control which portion of the audio clip was played back so if you were careful you could achieve the equivalence of controlling several different short clips. I'm not that bother - I just want to be able to add audio to my robots, which I can change at a later date if I want.

     

    Thanks for the help, your suggestions have been very helpful.

     

    Dubbie