MY ROBOTICS NOTES
Local stores (Ottawa)
- Active Components - Merivale Rd. at Shillington
largest selection of electronics in Ottawa and the only place to get IC's - Gervais Electronics - Industrial Ave.
- Reset Electronics
- far end of Baxter Rd.
wire, connectors, LED's, switches, batteries - ADD Electronics - Armstrong near Parkdale,
circuit boards, enclosures, connectors, switches, LED's, potentiometers, closed mondays
- Radio Shack
- Princess Auto
The surplus section has motors, wheels, gears, switches, ect.
- MEI- Lancaster rd.
for Panasonic sealed-lead-acid batteries
-
Ridalco - 1551 Michael St. near Belfast
cheap aluminum in many shapes and sizes, closed from noon to 1pm
- Metal
Supermarket - Lancaster rd. (near
Walkly)
- Discount
Hobbies - St. Joseph blvd, Orleans
servos
- Dynamic
Hobbies - Concourse Gate (off of
Colonade rd south)
servos
- Hobby
House - Monteal rd. (near River rd)
Tamiya motor/gearbox sets, mini lathe & milling machine
-
Canus Plastics
- Lisgar st. (between O'Connor & Bank)
sheets of Lexan, Acrylic etc.
Out of town stores (i.e. not in Ottawa)
- HVW Tech
- Calgary
Robotics kits and parts - Solarbotics
- Calgary
Robotics kits and parts
-
Bawts
- Toronto
Robotics kits and parts
-
Digikey
- Minnesota (2
hours south of Winnipeg)
Huge stock of electronic parts. Even though they're in the US, parts arrive in 1 or 2 days. No extra charges for duty & brokerage fees. Be sure to get one of their catalogues
-
RobotShop
- Laval
Robotics kits and parts
Robotics Clubs
-
Ottawa
Robotics Enthusiasts
Discussions are on Yahoo Groups , Meetings are held on the 2nd monday of every month at Algonquin College - Woodroffe campus [ details ], and are very informal. No fees, open to the public.
-
Seattle
Robotics Society
has probably the biggest & most informative web site
Robot Kits
- Lego
Mindstorms
very popular, very versatile, easy graphical programming. Around $300 (and well worth it)
-
IgORE/MiniORE
A project of Ottawa Robotics Enthusiasts . Cheap, powerful, versatile
Circuit Boards
- Gervais
has general purpose fiberglass boards that are
tin plated and perforated to break into 4 pieces.
$12
- A.D.D.
has 2 kinds of phenolic general purpose
boards. Not tin plated
large: $2.50, small: 85 cents
- AP Circuits in Calgary make custom 2-sided boards. Prices start at $67. There's nothing affordable in Ottawa (unless you make your own)
- Olimex - custom PC boards, Bulgaria. Prices start at $21 US
- Sparkfun - custom PC boards, Colorado. $2.50 US per square inch, minimum order: 1 square inch, shipping cost: about $15
Materials
- Aluminum
Ridalco has a good selection and low prices. Check out their scrap bin
Angle, per foot
1/2" 3/4" 1" 1-1/4" 1-1/2" 2" 1/16" .40 .66 .88 1/8" .80 1.00 1.70 2.42 2.60 3.46 3/16" 2.48 3.10 3.85 5.10 1/4" 2.70 3.34 3.80 5.50 Round tubing, per foot
1/2 3/4 1 1-1/4 1-1/2 2 .065" .72 1.10 1.60 1.86 2.22 3.92 .120" 2.85 3.20 3.95 5.40 Square tubing, per foot
3/4 1 1-1/4 1-1/2 2 .065" 1.3 2.00 .120" 3.40 4.45 5.20 6.75 Bars, per foot
1/4 1/2 3/4 1 1-1/4 1-1/2 2 1/8" .38 .55 .75 1.10 1.45 3/16" 1.10 1.32 1.58 2.26 1/4" .44 .75 1.10 1.45 2.20 2.92 3/8" 1.65 2.20 2.75 3.30 4.40 1/2" 1.54 2.20 2.86 3.65 4.40 5.80 Rods, per foot
1/8 3/16 1/4 3/8 1/2 5/8 3/4 1 .15 .27 .42 .90 1.50 2.30 3.90 5.15
Metal Supermarket has lower prices, but they charge $1.50 to cut off the amount you need. Ridalco doesn't.
- Acrylic
- cheap, easy to crack while cutting or drilling
available at Canus Plastics - Polycarbonate
- also known as Lexan, unbreakable
available at Canus Plastics - Expanded
PVC - also known as Sintra
light, affordable, easy to cut, can be shaped after putting in boiling water, comes in various colors and thicknesses. Off-cuts are available the sign shop at 747 Richmond Rd. Expect to pay $5 to $10 for a few pieces amounting to a few square feet.
Motors & Gearboxes
- power window motor
- wheel chair motor
- modified servos
- small, light, simple
about $20 each -
gearmotors from Solarbotics-
- like the modified servos but stronger and much cheaper, used in IgORE , 38 RPM, 50-600mA, upgrade motors are available for $5 for 2.
- $14.80 for 2 (shipping extra) - stepper motors
- unipolars are easy to control. use a ULN2003 transistor array
- bipolars need 2 H-bridges (a 3967 does the job nicely), almost twice the torque of unipolars
Sensors
here's an introduction to sensors by "RoboDave"
- Polaroid 6500
ultrasonic module, big, high current surges, range: 2-30 feet, wide coverage -
Devantech SRF04
ultrasonic module, very small , wide coverage, cheaper than the Polaroid, range: 1/2 inch to 10 feet or more.
$26 + 3% duty + $5 brokerage fee if ordered from Devantech (England). Acroname (US) sells them too but the shipping & brokerage fee is too high. $39 at Bawts in Toronto. - Ping - ultrasonic module, similar the the above but better and cheaper
- Sharp GP2D02 & GP2D052
infrared module, reliable , fairly accurate, 7-40+cm, very narrow coverage (5 degrees).
The GP2D02 has a 2 wire digital interface and is available at HVW Tech. Price is $40 for 1 or $115 for 4 add $6.50 for shipping.
The GP2D05 has a 1 wire analog output. Available from Active for $15. -
Sharp IS1U60
infrared reciever, looks like a transistor with a lens on the side. Supposed to be better, smaller and cheaper than the older GP1U5, $6 at HVW Tech. - Pyroelectric detector
-
Hamamatsu UVTron
flame detector - Devantech Thermal Array Sensor
-
Devantech CMPS03
digital compass, small, .1 degree resolution (I have one) - Sharp GP1S306 & GP1S036HEZ tilt sensors
- bend sensor
- Gameboy camera
-
CMUcam
- a color camera with image proccessing, $150.
I got one of these last year and am still trying figure it out. It doesn't help that the GUI software crashes on my laptop. - Microswitches
makes bumpers more reliable, $3.50 at Radio Shack ($10 or more anywhere else). Or even better, get a dead mouse at Computer Recyclers for 10 cents and take the microswitches out of it.
Batteries
- nickel metal hydride
1.4 Volts per cell, up to 3 times the capacity of nicads- Energizer AA, 2050 mAh, pack of 4, $20 at Shoppers Drug Mart
- Ray-O-Vac I-C3 AA 2000 mAh, will charge in 17 minutes with special charger! 2 batteries and charger, $50 at Radio Shack
- deep cycle sealed lead acid
heavy, works out to 1.2 A-hr per pound (@12V), can be fast charged, make sure to get "deep cycle" only as they all look the same.
Panasonic LC-R125P, 12V, 5A-hr, 4.25 lb., $24 at MEI
Panasonic LC-R127R2P, 12V, 7.2A-hr, 5.5 lb., $26 at MEI
6V, 5A-hr, $6 at Computer Recyclers (if there are any left) - nicad
obsolete, use nickel metal hydride instead
Here's a robot that
combines many behaviors
An article on navigating
inside a house For H-bridge chips, look here
Motor
control modules Motor
Mind B - this contains a dual H-bridge, PWM,
serial interface and tach input. It can handle 2A
continuous and 3.5A peak. Available at HVW Tech.Controller Options
For microcontrollers, look here
programmable in C, Visual Basic &Java. comes with a lot of software to make
programming easier.
OOPic 1 is $75 at HVW Tech, OOPic 2 is $100 (shipping extra).
Behaviors
Books
- Robot Builder's Bonanza, Third Edition by Gordon McComb, Myke Predko ISBN: 0071468935
- Microprocessors, From Assembly Language to C Using the PICI8FXX2, Robert B. Reese, ISBN #: 1584503785