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Step 5Electronics(1): PIC micro and the PAK VIII
Refer to my previous instructables on using the PIC, or you can use another type of microcontroller, or you can just use switches to control power to the motors and skip the whole digital electronics part.
I used a PIC microcontroller because my original intention was to put the batteries, controller, etc all on the robot to make it autonomous, but I had to rush to complete it because I was building it for an event (nyc idiotarod), so I just used long extension cords to supply power to the robot from an external power source.
To allow the PIC to control the motors while also doing other stuff (like listening for your commands, or whatever), you'll want to use a pulse width modulation (PWM) coprocessor such as the PAK VIII. This chip takes in a clocked in value from the PIC and takes care of sending the correct pulse width commands to the Victor 885 speed controller. Figuring out how to interface to it from the PIC via software was a bit of a pain, you can download the code I used (LBigWalk.bas).
The circuit diagram for how to connect everything together is below.
TO SEE THE CIRCUIT IMAGE FULL FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW:
http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/FEO/FOH6/FC0Z01U6/FEOFOH6FC0Z01U6.jpg
I used a PIC microcontroller because my original intention was to put the batteries, controller, etc all on the robot to make it autonomous, but I had to rush to complete it because I was building it for an event (nyc idiotarod), so I just used long extension cords to supply power to the robot from an external power source.
To allow the PIC to control the motors while also doing other stuff (like listening for your commands, or whatever), you'll want to use a pulse width modulation (PWM) coprocessor such as the PAK VIII. This chip takes in a clocked in value from the PIC and takes care of sending the correct pulse width commands to the Victor 885 speed controller. Figuring out how to interface to it from the PIC via software was a bit of a pain, you can download the code I used (LBigWalk.bas).
The circuit diagram for how to connect everything together is below.
TO SEE THE CIRCUIT IMAGE FULL FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW:
http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/FEO/FOH6/FC0Z01U6/FEOFOH6FC0Z01U6.jpg
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