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Posted by on August 16, 2009, 3:12 pm
As a software guy, lurking on the periphery of the robotics hobby, I've
taken a liking to AVR type processors, and I've decided to learn a bit
about hardware, circuits, control and such ...
In keeping, I recently shelled out to purchase a NerdKit, and quickly put
together the tutorials based upon an AVR, some sensors, an LCD display,
and a few caps, resistors, transistors and fets ... moreover, I used an
ubuntu laptop to connect the USB port to an adapter on the chip, to
program the thing in moments flat ... cool
Joe Pardue's Smiley Micros has been doing some tutorials in Nuts/Volts
magazine (or is it Servo?), and has moved from the AVR Butterfly tutorials
(for which he has a book and kit), to an Arduino Decimielia (sp?). I
purchased his butterfly kit some time ago, and started playing with that
recently as well ...
Between the two "kits", and tutorials, I'm beginning to get a handle on
programming to the hw, which is different for someone used to having a
whole OS, with API's and most of the hard stuff already done ...
My circuit design is still a bit at the elementary stages, but the little
squiggles and lines you hardware men of mystery use for a language
(circuit diagrams) are slowly becoming eerily familiar.
I must say, that using the NerdKits/Smiley approach to a gentle
introduction to embedded stuff is a decent one, but I have a long way to
go before I can achieve my goals ...
1.) an ESC (speed control) circuit for hard drive BLDC motors.
2.) a multi-servo control circuit
3.) a Bluetooth enabled control board with MEMS
accelerometers/gyros ...
Basically, I want to ultimately create a UAV from salvaged hard drive
motors ... and stuff lying around my junk drawers.
Clearly I have a long way to go, but having the knowledge to know that I
have a long way to go is a good first step, and probably not enough
knowlege to know how much work is involved ... (I think?).
As for now, ... one circuit at a time ... and the software to make it all
work ... and carefully, so I don't let all the magic smoke out of the
chips 8-) ...
Cheers,
Rob Sciuk
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Posted by l o on August 17, 2009, 5:35 pm
Just be sure that you have a handle on the basics of electricity. You
may already have the issues of voltage, current, wattage, and the
basic components of resister, capacitor, inductor, rectifier.
I would also add the transistor and LED as semiconductors that you
need to get a good understanding of. Otherwise you may see a lot of
"magic smoke" before you really understand what is going.
Joe Dunfee
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