Tree Climbing Robot

Step 17 Wiring the Robot

The next step is to wire all the electrical components of the robot together.  I started out by soldering long wires to the contacts on the motors.  I twisted the wires together by chucking one end in an electric drill and holding the other end with pliers (a trick I learned from the Ben Heck show).  Next, I wired together the pots on the legs.  I did this using segments of ribbon cable from an old IDE cable.  I wired the pots so that they all had a common ground and input voltage.  The input voltage was connected to the +5V pin on the Arduino, and the four signal wires were soldered to headers and then connected to analog inputs A0 - A3 on the Arduino.  

Because this robot is autonomous, I needed a method for controlling the robot's actions so that I could get it to release from the tree.  For this, I just used a simple slide switch connected to a digital input on the Arduino

Next, I wired the digital output pins on the Arduino to the inputs on the motor controller.  First, I connected all the motor enabling pins on the motor controller to eachother.  The rest of the wiring went as follows:

1. Enable Motors
2. Motor 4 Input 2
3. Motor 4 Input 1
4. Motor 3 Input 2
5. Motor 3 Input 1
6. Control Switch 
7. empty
8. Motor 2 Input 2
9. Motor 2 Input 1
10. Motor 1 Input 2
11. Motor 1 Input 1
12. Motor 5 Input 2
13. Motor 5 Input 1

I then connected the motor's leads to the terminal strips on the motor controller, and connected the motor voltage terminal to the 12V battery pack, via a toggle switch.  I connected the 5V regulator to the logic voltage terminal, via the same toggle switch.

I collected the umbilical cord of wires running between the two segments of the robot into a bundle, and fastened them together with zip ties and electrical tape, to keep them organized.