 |
| Our table at the Toronto Maker Faire |
At the Maker Faire, we also brought out a few new products. First we have our Encoder 5132 - a Quadrature encoder that is pin compatible with the US Digital E4P - http://www.usdigital.com/products/encoders/incremental/rotary/kit/E4P. We had originally intended to use the E4P in our robot designs, but a few months ago we tried to order some more E4P's and noticed the following:
 |
| Quadrature Encoder 5132 |
 |
| Signals from quardature encoder with the shaft rotating clockwise |
// --------------------------
// Quadrature Encoder Interface (QEI) functions
// --------------------------
// getQEI - Gets the QEI for the desired motor
// Prints an error if QEI for motor is not received
// Parameters:
// Quadrature Encoder Interface (QEI) functions
// --------------------------
// getQEI - Gets the QEI for the desired motor
// Prints an error if QEI for motor is not received
// Parameters:
// fd - connection to the board (value returned from DMCCstart)
// motor - motor number desired
// Returns: QEI for given motor
// always returns 0 if an error occurs
unsigned int getQEI(int fd, unsigned int motor);
// motor - motor number desired
// Returns: QEI for given motor
// always returns 0 if an error occurs
unsigned int getQEI(int fd, unsigned int motor);
// getQEIVel - Gets the QEI velocity for the desired motor
// Prints an error if QEI velocity for motor is not received
// Parameters:
// Prints an error if QEI velocity for motor is not received
// Parameters:
// fd - connection to the board (value returned from DMCCstart)
// motor - motor number desired
// Returns: QEI velocity for given motor
// always returns 0 if an error occurs
int getQEIVel(int fd, unsigned int motor);
After we got the encoder replacement working, we needed something to showcase at the Toronto Maker Faire, so we built Orbit the robot! (also avaliable in kit form).
The top plate, bottom plate, large gears, and small gears are all Laser cut from 1/8" acrylic. The white vertical pieces are CNC milled Delrin plastic, and the rest of the mechanical parts and motor is from Vex Robotics. We added in a Beaglebone Black and our DMCC Mk.6 Dual Motor Controller Cape, and voila! - Instant Robot.
We had sold our assembled Orbit Robot on the first day of the show, so we were scrambling to quickly build another demo robot. It was a lot harder to build when we realized we forgot to bring the proper screwdriver (small phillips) to the show!
// motor - motor number desired
// Returns: QEI velocity for given motor
// always returns 0 if an error occurs
int getQEIVel(int fd, unsigned int motor);
After we got the encoder replacement working, we needed something to showcase at the Toronto Maker Faire, so we built Orbit the robot! (also avaliable in kit form).
 |
| Orbit Robot |
We had sold our assembled Orbit Robot on the first day of the show, so we were scrambling to quickly build another demo robot. It was a lot harder to build when we realized we forgot to bring the proper screwdriver (small phillips) to the show!
 |
| Building a new Orbit Robot at the Toronto Maker Faire |
