Stealthbot

Posted by Lonlaz on February 12, 2009, 2:50 pm

Hey everyone, I was hoping you could help me out in parts selection.
Please keep in mind that although I've been playing around for them
for a while, I'm still pretty green in electronics. I want to make a
stealth/rc surveillance robot, and add some autonomous behavious later
on. Now, I warn you, this is something that I've dreamed up in some
of my more bored moments in the cubicle farm.

The trick of it is that it needs to be under .5in thick in order to
slip under the gap of cubicles at my workplace, and possibly as short
as I need it to be.. I've got an idea for some low-rez b/w video that
I'll be expirimenting with here soon. What I'm not sure is the
locomotion.

I'm considering a set of Tamiya tank treads using the smaller
sprockets, but I've heard that the Tamiya motors are pretty noisy.
I've seen some small looking motors/gearboxes at Pololu, and some even
smaller ones here:

http://inertialabs.com/srv.htm

Anyone have any better expirience with these are far as noise, or any
better suggestions?

Lonlaz

Posted by on February 12, 2009, 7:28 pm

I suspect that a regular DC motor and gearbox will not be viable for
you. Cassette tape players often used a very quiet motor, and a belt
to drive the mechanism. You can use the larger pulley as the wheel,
with the belt actually providing the traction surface.

Joe Dunfee

Posted by Lonlaz on February 13, 2009, 9:48 am

I've been crunching numbers, it it looks like if the motor is too high
rpm I'd need an unwieldy reduction system. I've only got .5" to work
with, I'm guessing I'd end up having to go from .25 to .5 several
times for each motor to get somewhere around 50 rpm. This is where I
just don't have the experience, I guess I should just start
experimenting. Can PWM run a motor at a low enough speed and provide
sufficient torque (I'm guessing not, or else you'd see a lot more
robots without gear boxes). I'm going to do some google research on
miniature stepper motors.

Lonlaz

On Feb 12, 6:28 pm, cadco...@yahoo.com wrote:

> I suspect that a regular DC motor and gearbox will not be viable for
> you. Cassette tape players often used a very quiet motor, and a belt
> to drive the mechanism. You can use the larger pulley as the wheel,
> with the belt actually providing the traction surface.
> Joe Dunfee

Posted by Curt Welch on February 13, 2009, 3:08 pm

> I've been crunching numbers, it it looks like if the motor is too high
> rpm I'd need an unwieldy reduction system. I've only got .5" to work
> with, I'm guessing I'd end up having to go from .25 to .5 several
> times for each motor to get somewhere around 50 rpm. This is where I
> just don't have the experience, I guess I should just start
> experimenting. Can PWM run a motor at a low enough speed and provide
> sufficient torque (I'm guessing not, or else you'd see a lot more
> robots without gear boxes). I'm going to do some google research on
> miniature stepper motors.

Well, the other option is to use very small wheels to solve the gearing
problem....

http://www.streettech.com/robotbook/mousey.html

> Lonlaz
> On Feb 12, 6:28 pm, cadco...@yahoo.com wrote:

> > I suspect that a regular DC motor and gearbox will not be viable for
> > you. Cassette tape players often used a very quiet motor, and a belt
> > to drive the mechanism. You can use the larger pulley as the wheel,
> > with the belt actually providing the traction surface.
> > Joe Dunfee

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/

Posted by SumGie on February 14, 2009, 6:16 pm

Hmmm... have you considered the legality of this? I mean, if I were to look
down at the floor and see a mobile camera looking up at me, my first
reaction would be to stomp it to pieces, and then sue the pants off of
whoever objected to this destruction as well as the company I was working
for, for invasion of privacy and anything else my lawyer could come up with
to boot. And I'm a guy... I wear pants, not skirts... so I'd think my
reaction would be the calmer one.

But hey... maybe that's just me.

> Hey everyone, I was hoping you could help me out in parts selection.
> Please keep in mind that although I've been playing around for them
> for a while, I'm still pretty green in electronics. I want to make a
> stealth/rc surveillance robot, and add some autonomous behavious later
> on. Now, I warn you, this is something that I've dreamed up in some
> of my more bored moments in the cubicle farm.
> The trick of it is that it needs to be under .5in thick in order to
> slip under the gap of cubicles at my workplace, and possibly as short
> as I need it to be.. I've got an idea for some low-rez b/w video that
> I'll be expirimenting with here soon. What I'm not sure is the
> locomotion.
> I'm considering a set of Tamiya tank treads using the smaller
> sprockets, but I've heard that the Tamiya motors are pretty noisy.
> I've seen some small looking motors/gearboxes at Pololu, and some even
> smaller ones here:
> http://inertialabs.com/srv.htm
> Anyone have any better expirience with these are far as noise, or any
> better suggestions?
> Lonlaz

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