General electronics and or robots
#1
I have not much to post here yet but these 2 subjects are of great interest to me, I know quite a bit about the general field of electronics and have been an armchair roboticists(still have not been past the reading phase on robots but will some day build one from a kit and then again from scratch). Anyone else out there have similar interest?

I do believe that a roboticists that is just starting out should start with a kit to learn the ins and outs of robotics then the next step is to modify a kit and then make a robotic creation of your own.
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#2
I have a interest but not enough to motivate me to get off my a** and do something. Icon_lol
Mike

Sent from my pocket calculator using two tin cans and a string
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#3
AF350
There must be a forum out there just for robotics and for sure in Yahoo Groups. Are you going to do anything in model RRing?
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#4
lajry Wrote:AF350
There must be a forum out there just for robotics and for sure in Yahoo Groups. Are you going to do anything in model RRing?

I allways wanted to build a robotic track inspector to find and record voltage & current drops on a layout and automated track cleaning.

I also have a ton of Model Railroad stuff to complete before I start anything else Icon_lol
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#5
I would love to make a robotic lawn mower, I hate mowing the lawn and then having to mow it a few weeks later.
Mark
Fake It till you Make It, then Fake It some More
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#6
Back when Radio Electronics Magazine was still in publication they had a how to article on building a robot lawn mower. There was a couple ready made lawn mowers as well.

The way they worked was you used a remote to guide the robot around the perimeter of yard and then once the border is made it uses sensors to detect tall grass and automaticaly guides it self in a circle around the yard while you sit back and watch.

Some good sources are the robot store which is part of Jameco electronics and Make magizine is a good publication with all sorts of do it your self projects including electronics.
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#7
I have just learned about a place called servo city http://www.servocity.com

They carry robotic parts and supplies. So why Have I posted it here on a train site you might ask? Because they sell a line of product called Actobotics (think Erector sets on steroids) not only structural parts but gears, chains, belts, motors and servos, wheels and tires, a limitless array of hardware parts-really cool stuff and even parts to make gripers for robotic hands if you can dream it you can build it, like custom made operating accessories for trains. 2285_
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#8
Hey guys. Coming from the other side of the fence, i am new to model railroading but have been heavily involved in robotics and electronics for the last twenty or so years. My interest in trains is complete robotic operation... yummy. If anyone is interested, I write for Robot Magazine under the pen name of CowboyCoder and my column is Teds Bot Bench.

If anyone has robotics questions, feel free to ask.

Kit versus scratch building a bot... blaach. You will get way more from a couple of servos and an Arduino.

Ted
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#9
TrippiN Wrote:Hey guys. Coming from the other side of the fence, i am new to model railroading but have been heavily involved in robotics and electronics for the last twenty or so years. My interest in trains is complete robotic operation... yummy. If anyone is interested, I write for Robot Magazine under the pen name of CowboyCoder and my column is Teds Bot Bench.

If anyone has robotics questions, feel free to ask.

Kit versus scratch building a bot... blaach. You will get way more from a couple of servos and an Arduino.

Ted
Welcome to the Gauge Ted. I just bought some sevro motors that I hope I can make into switch machines. When I get around to it you may be sorry you you offered to answer questions.
Charlie
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#10
Nice to meet you Charlie. LOL no worries on questions, I have been answering them since the day I started writing.

OK, now you have servos and need a way to generate a very specific PWM signal to control them... Pick up an Arduino Mega and a sensor or expansion shield for it. sparkfun has just about everything. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.sparkfun.com/">https://www.sparkfun.com/</a><!-- m -->
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#11
dinggin tablet...

PS - an Arduino UNO will also work...
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#12
Welcome TrippiN Welcome

Have been into trains from 4 or 5 years old, been working(playing) with computers since 1982 ish still have my first two computers Ti- 994a and an Apple IIc. Took an interest in electrical/electronics in 9th grade by junior year in high school I enrolled in a vocational school for junior and senior year spent half day at high school and the other half at a vocational school in a course called digital/industrial electronics. After high school went right into DeVry to earn an Assoc. degree of applied science of electronics 1990 then went back 2006 online to get a B.S. technical management. I have about 13 years experience working on electronics mostly industrial controls, 2 wire and 4 wire loop systems. Also have worked on cable tv, medical, and phone equipment and 5 years digital copiers 35 Now I work outside my field and mostly "play" electronics now and then, I have been interested in robotics and laser technology but have not got around to doing anything yet. Microcontrollers are neat used to the pic series of microcontrollers at work.

I noticed that TI is getting into field of Ardunio type boards, I have a little bit experience in C and C++ how similar is programming an ardunio ? I have not jumped into this part of the hobby yet.
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#13
AF350 Wrote:Welcome TrippiN Welcome

Have been into trains from 4 or 5 years old, been working(playing) with computers since 1982 ish still have my first two computers Ti- 994a and an Apple IIc. Took an interest in electrical/electronics in 9th grade by junior year in high school I enrolled in a vocational school for junior and senior year spent half day at high school and the other half at a vocational school in a course called digital/industrial electronics. After high school went right into DeVry to earn an Assoc. degree of applied science of electronics 1990 then went back 2006 online to get a B.S. technical management. I have about 13 years experience working on electronics mostly industrial controls, 2 wire and 4 wire loop systems. Also have worked on cable tv, medical, and phone equipment and 5 years digital copiers 35 Now I work outside my field and mostly "play" electronics now and then, I have been interested in robotics and laser technology but have not got around to doing anything yet. Microcontrollers are neat used to the pic series of microcontrollers at work.

I noticed that TI is getting into field of Ardunio type boards, I have a little bit experience in C and C++ how similar is programming an ardunio ? I have not jumped into this part of the hobby yet.

Hello and thanks for the welcome. Arduino is very C++ ish... It would have been all C++ but in order to simplify the use for a broad demographic a few rules were broken. The upside is that Arduinos are very very easy to use with tens of millions of free lines of code on the web. Trust me, if a model RRer wants to do it, the robot guys have done it already. In this line of thought a train is a very simple robot with no uncontrollable variables. It on a track with fixed locations. We routinely deal with robots that navigate real world variables.

I am currently involved in a project that, with a boxcar of luck, will send a 8 foot robotic boat across the atlantic late this year.

A final thought on Arduino. I was a holdout and wouldn't adopt Arduino for the longest time. Die hard Pic guy.... The simplicity and worldwide support got me. Is it the end all be all controller? hell no. Is it simple to use and offer the abilities we RRers need,want? Yes, and then some.

Ted
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#14
Ocean going drones..............saw something about that on the news awhile back :ugeek: I also have a Makerbot 3D printer that I play with, I read Make, wired, Maxium pc and have a bunch of old radio electronics and popular electronics magazines. May have to start getting nuts and volts as radio electronics and popular electronics are no longer around Sad
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#15
The boat you saw was the Scout most likely. Dang thing was destined to fail right from launch. they used a deep, narrow fin keel with the motor mounted on the bottom of it. Can you say seaweed catcher...

For magazines I would think Robot and Servo.

Ted
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