7.1 KiB
Robot assembly
This file contains assembly instructions for building the robots and soldering the electronics.
Here is how the finished robot will look like:
Components
The robot consists of the following components:
- Adafruit Mini 3-Layer Round Robot Chassis Kit
- Wemos D1 mini
- Wemos D1 mini battery shield
- Wemos D1 mini motor shield (v1.0.0)
- LiPo battery
In addition you will need the following tools:
- A soldering iron
- Solder wire
- Heat shrink tube
- Some wires
- Battery connectors (fitting your battery)
- Velcro tape
- Self adhesive tape
- Isolation tape
- Pin headers
For the camera based position detection of the robots you will need:
- A camera
- A printer
- Paper
- Cardboard
Assembly instructions
Robot chassis
Assemble the chassis according to the instructions provided by adafruit (see here).
Soldering the electronics
####Preparing Wemos D1 mini and shields
| Description | Image |
|---|---|
| Solder on two rows of 8 male pin headers to the D1 mini |  |
| Solder on two rows of 8 female pin headers to the motor shield . |   |
| Also solder a single row of bent pins to the motor shield. Make sure they are soldered on the right way around. |  |
| Solder a jumper to the motor shield to connect the RTS and 3V pin. This will become important later on. Also solder the I2C bridge. |  |
| Solder on two rows of 8 female pin headers with long pins to the battery shield |   |
| Cut off the tips of the long pins such that the battery shield nicely fits into the motor shield |    |
Connecting battery shield and motor shield for motor power supply
In the next step we connect the battery connector pins of the battery shield to the + and - pins of the motor shield. In addition we will add a connector to the motor shield where we can plug in the battery. Here is a schematic:
Note: I added a new connector instead of using the one already on the battery shield because the plug of my battery wouldn't fit in the on on the shield
- First, solder two wires to the + and - pins of the battery shield and isolate them with heat shrink:
| Description | Image |
|---|---|
| Cut two small pieces of wire (about 4 cm), remove the isolation on both ends and cover them with a bit of solder |  |
| Solder the first wire to the + pin of the battery shield |  |
| Solder the second wire to the - pin |  |
| Cover both wires with small pieces of heat shrink tube |  |
| Heat the shrink tube with a lighter |  |
| This is how the battery shield should look like with the two wires |  |
- Next, we create a connector for the battery. In my case the battery had a male JST 2-Pin connector, so I soldered a female JST 2-Pin connector for plugin it in:
| Description | Image |
|---|---|
| Cut two small pieces of wire (about 3 cm), remove the isolation on both ends and cover them with a bit of solder |  |
| Solder the first wire to the JST connector |  |
| Solder the second wire to the JST connector |  |
| Cover both wires with heat shrink |  |
| Solder the wires to the motor shield, paying attention to the polarity (make sure it matches the polarity of your batteries!) |  |
- Now, stack the battery shield on top of the motor shield and solder the battery connector:
| Description | Image |
|---|---|
| Connect the + pin of the battery shield to the + pin of the motor shield. Be sure to isolate the connection with heat shrink. Then repeat the same for the - pins. |  |
| This is how it should look like in the end. |   |
Next steps
This concludes the main steps for the robot assembly. The next step is to fix a problem with the firmware on the motor shield in order to use it via I2C. Head over to 2_MOTOR_SHIELD_FIX.md for the instructions.