• Important! If you attempt to register and do not get an email within 5 minutes please check your spam box. This is especially true for Microsoft owned domains like Hotmail, Outlook, and Live. If these do not work please consider Gmail. Yahoo, or even AOL email which works fine.

4WD RPi Robot Thread

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
This is why my original design used optoisolators.... so that the electrical systems of the Pi and motor control board were isolated. Didn't do that for the first pass.... oh well, live and learn.

I had to order some other stuff, so I ordered a 4-channel driver board ($18) that'll do basically the same thing my breadboard is doing with a smaller footprint. I'm going to wire up an isolation setup to use with it which should prevent similar problems with the Pi 2 that I'll be using going forward. It's such a simple circuit that I may solder it up on a prototype board once I've proven it.
 
Just design a PCB board and solder your parts on it. That is what we do. LOL...and by we I mean the guy in the office beside mine.
 

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
Just design a PCB board and solder your parts on it. That is what we do. LOL...and by we I mean the guy in the office beside mine.
I have no way of printing/etching now and custom printed boards aren't exactly cheap for one offs. Best case, I solder wires on a prototype board then cover in hot glue.
 

Glenn

Desert Dweller
VIP
That is pretty neat. I remember doing stuff like that.... when I was a kid. Back when you could walk in to Radio Shack any buy everything you needed to build whatever you wanted. :thup2:
 

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
That is pretty neat. I remember doing stuff like that.... when I was a kid. Back when you could walk in to Radio Shack any buy everything you needed to build whatever you wanted. :thup2:
Yeah, I was bummed that I couldn't find my collection of electronic junk from my teenage years to play with for nostalgic purposes.

This is what I'm aiming for with my optocoupler board. The green wires are the signal wires coming in/out with the ones not attached being isolated from the Pi and going to the motor controller. Currently have 13 in/out. Might use the 13th to control power in/out of the board to the driver board rather than having the battery connected directly to it.

 

wct097

NPD Club President 2021-2022
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP
I think that's the right math, at least.... been a while since I did electronics stuff. I remember Ohm's law, but I'm a little fuzzy on the whole thing.... got a little refresher when I blew an LED and Optocoupler playing today.
 

serfur1

bici italia
VIP
Good stuff! It has been a loooong time since I've designed and etched boards for projects. I started in high school and it is what led me to get an electrical engineering degree. Will look forward to seeing/reading about this. :beerchug:
 
LOL, I picked EE because it was the second highest on the salary list, Chemical engineering was first and I hated chemistry. Too bad BME wasnt an option, that is what really interests me.
 
Top