Hi all,
Over the holidays, there was a marriage. The Groom was resplendant in his dark black tux, and his lovely Bride was absolutely radiant in her beautiful, flowing white gown. As a Christmas project I had my sons help me put together a "couple" of new platforms that we'll be using over the coming months for development of some new, cool, robotic "thingy's". When they're together, they do kinda remind me of a wedding though...
-Matt
erco - He's so small...If I could name him, I'd call him "Splinter".
Humanoido - In our *extensive testing laboratory*, we did perform some load capacity tests. We wanted to make sure that the HDPE motor mount holes, castor *blind* self-tapping holes, didn't tear out.
The platform had no problem carrying 20-30-40 pounds at all. So we devised the ultimate test. It required the selection of a weighty object that was very dense and solid. We had just about given up hope at finding something that would suit that purpose, when Scott - our machinist walked into the room. Problem solved.
Scott weighs about 195 pounds, and he just stepped up onto the Robot Base, I connected the battery, and off he went! Problem was, without speed control he lost his balance, and he broke one of the casters - but the platform and the caster bracket (which was still attached to the Base) were just fine - we just needed to replace a caster wheel.
Do we recommend this as a "load capacity" capability - of course not. But we were quite amazed at how effortlessly the Base could move so smoothly with that much mass.
-Matt
Parallax did an awesome job on these new bases! Leaving the edges squared off was the right thing to do. Now I have some more robot building to do.....
Hi all,
Why don't you give the robot the additional function of a "LOGO tortoise"?
The only you need to do is 2 holes diameter 15mm exactly as the diameter of a pen-marker.
The one hole in the centre of the HDPE base and the other in the midle of the Battery Shelf.
I know that in this case the battery is a problem (because the pen can't pass through it) but we can replace this battery with two smaler batteries.
To move the pen up and down I suggest a mechanism similar to the "pen mechanism" from s2 robot.
I think that Hydra LOGO is an amazig tool that we can combine with this robot and the propeller board.
Hi everybody -
Sorry for the delay, but we're finally there.
The Black Robot Base Kit (erco's favorite), is in Kitting now, and should be "in-stock" by tomorrow.
When it'll get front page recognition is anybody's guess - we've got a bunch of new stuff all lined up and nearly ready to dance.
The Robot Base Product Doc contains a short section on how to work with (mill, cut, etc.) HDPE plastic. I'm interested in hearing from you'all about your experiences in working with this material (great, good, bad, and ugly) (erco - <muzzeled> because there's a lot of ways to skin-a-cat.
Thanks to vivid imaginations here on the Forum (Nikos, et.al.), as well as within the bowels of Parallax, there are other add-ons in the pipeline that should be pretty cool...
Keep the ideas coming -
@ Whit - "Ouch and OUCH"...what happened Whit? Did you get a splinter from erco's Plywoodium Fal-apart-con?
Humanoido - In our *extensive testing laboratory*, we did perform some load capacity tests. We wanted to make sure that the HDPE motor mount holes, castor *blind* self-tapping holes, didn't tear out.
The platform had no problem carrying 20-30-40 pounds at all. So we devised the ultimate test. It required the selection of a weighty object that was very dense and solid. We had just about given up hope at finding something that would suit that purpose, when Scott - our machinist walked into the room. Problem solved. Scott weighs about 195 pounds, and he just stepped up onto the Robot Base, I connected the battery, and off he went! Problem was, without speed control he lost his balance, and he broke one of the casters - but the platform and the caster bracket (which was still attached to the Base) were just fine - we just needed to replace a caster wheel. Do we recommend this as a "load capacity" capability - of course not. But we were quite amazed at how effortlessly the Base could move so smoothly with that much mass. -Matt
Matt, your ingenious method of testing load capacity by using Scott as the live weight did achieve rather quickly the desire test data. This is actually very helpful as I'm working on similar load bearing designs for a small robotic platform that can shuffle people to predetermined locations. Keep up the excellent work on this project!
Comments
And Matt: Your "Wood Side" reference has just added a plywood log to my (f)ire!
Humanoido - In our *extensive testing laboratory*, we did perform some load capacity tests. We wanted to make sure that the HDPE motor mount holes, castor *blind* self-tapping holes, didn't tear out.
The platform had no problem carrying 20-30-40 pounds at all. So we devised the ultimate test. It required the selection of a weighty object that was very dense and solid. We had just about given up hope at finding something that would suit that purpose, when Scott - our machinist walked into the room. Problem solved.
Scott weighs about 195 pounds, and he just stepped up onto the Robot Base, I connected the battery, and off he went! Problem was, without speed control he lost his balance, and he broke one of the casters - but the platform and the caster bracket (which was still attached to the Base) were just fine - we just needed to replace a caster wheel.
Do we recommend this as a "load capacity" capability - of course not. But we were quite amazed at how effortlessly the Base could move so smoothly with that much mass.
-Matt
Robert
As Matt noted, the Farce is strong with this one...
Ouch and OUCH! Give somebody a little warning....
Hi all,
Why don't you give the robot the additional function of a "LOGO tortoise"?
The only you need to do is 2 holes diameter 15mm exactly as the diameter of a pen-marker.
The one hole in the centre of the HDPE base and the other in the midle of the Battery Shelf.
I know that in this case the battery is a problem (because the pen can't pass through it) but we can replace this battery with two smaler batteries.
To move the pen up and down I suggest a mechanism similar to the "pen mechanism" from s2 robot.
I think that Hydra LOGO is an amazig tool that we can combine with this robot and the propeller board.
Sorry for the delay, but we're finally there.
The Black Robot Base Kit (erco's favorite), is in Kitting now, and should be "in-stock" by tomorrow.
When it'll get front page recognition is anybody's guess - we've got a bunch of new stuff all lined up and nearly ready to dance.
The Robot Base Product Doc contains a short section on how to work with (mill, cut, etc.) HDPE plastic. I'm interested in hearing from you'all about your experiences in working with this material (great, good, bad, and ugly) (erco - <muzzeled>
Thanks to vivid imaginations here on the Forum (Nikos, et.al.), as well as within the bowels of Parallax, there are other add-ons in the pipeline that should be pretty cool...
Keep the ideas coming -
@ Whit - "Ouch and OUCH"...what happened Whit? Did you get a splinter from erco's Plywoodium Fal-apart-con?
-Matt
http://plasticsmachining.com/magazine/2001-09/PP-HDPE.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_6878115_do-machine-hdpe-plastic_.html
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/glass_plastic_stone/39618-machining_plastic_hdpe.html