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Pololu Balboa (balancing robot)

mcb1

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While I was chasing some Motor Drivers, I ran across Pololu's balancing robot.

source www.pololu.com

 

They have a video showing that it can stand up.

https://youtu.be/sRtsc3EXL8A

 

 

You buy the motors and wheels separately and they recommend a 80 x 10mm wheel

There are three motors and then there are 5 different ratios in the geabox

 

Perhaps the most annoying part is not knowing which is the best option.

Surely stability is better with X and higher speed with some stability is better with Y.

 

 

Assembly

The Assembly went relatively well.

I would suggest tinning the motor connections before getting them anywhere near the control board.

There are a few SMD IC's right below the brush connections, and one solder blob is all it takes ....

 

 

 

I did have issues with the bearings and shafts.

Some of the bearings slide over the shaft, and others were so tight they required some persuasion.

So I would trial fit and juggle where to fit the tight bearings.

 

 

The assembly is not something that you could give to a small child without the possibility of damaging something.

There are various parts that would suit them, and others that are just too delicate.

 

 

 

 

Controller

The Controller is based on an ATmega32U4 and the board includes the motor drivers, quadrature detectors, and various other interfaces.

It includes a LSM6DS33 gyro and accelerometer as well as a LIS3MDL 3 axis magnetometer.

They make the comment in the notes about interference and reference the forum on a solution.

https://forum.pololu.com/t/correcting-the-balboa-magnetometer/14315

 

I'm glad someone else has done the bits that make my head sore 

 

 

A Raspberry Pi header is provided and the 5v regulator capable of supplying 2A powers the RPi.

The integrated level converters allow connection to the I2C on the RPi.

They have even provided an 4096 byte ID EEPROM that connects to the Pi ID_SD and ID_SC pins.

 

 

   

 

I can see the Pi Zero being put to use later maybe.

 

 

 

 

They provide some nifty arms to help prevent damage.

They are adjustable for angles, which is interesting given that it seems to be able to stand up from horizontal.

   

 

I've elected to keep mine closed, and it's close to zero degrees, so not sure how I managed that.

 

 

 

So for now that's about it.

I'm not sure what it will get used for.

I always wanted a balancing robot and I even found the collection of parts I brought years ago to make one  .....

 

 

I am going to chase down an 8x2 LCD as it should provide some useful feedback.

 

 

 

In theory this could be included in the Open Arduino ... but that is hardly fair.

 

 

Mark

Anonymous
  • in reply to fmilburn

    One of the ideas I had (not necessarily for the Pololu robot) involves lidar and a camera on a robot. In my previous life before retirement some of my work was in large plants with lots of piping and equipment. The newer ones were designed with 3d CAD but for the older ones there may have been at best 2d hand drawn documentation that frequently was out of date due to field modifications.  In recent years we would send out a crew with lidar and camera.  They would put targets in strategic places and use the lidar to get measurements and make a model. One of the neat things they could do then was to overlay the camera capture over it.  This of course cost a fair amount of money but was quite worthwhile to us.  I imagine the commercial offerings have improved since I was last involved.  Google of course did something somewat similar with street view.

     

    Maybe someone is already doing it but it would be interesting to try something similar on the cheap and completely automate it with a Raspberry Pi. 

  • in reply to fmilburn

    It only provides I2C connection between them, but there are other I/O on the Pololu controller that might interface to the RPi (level conversion required)

    was thinking the WiFI and maybe camera are options, but the RPi consume power, so you're shortening the run time .... by a lot.

     

     

    I'm concentrating on getting HaloBOT 2.0 running at the moment.

     

    Some decisions regarding the battery placement before the mounting cover gets made.

     

     

    Mark

  • I have eyed these in the past - may have to get one.  My interest has been around what additional capability I could add with the Raspberry Pi.