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Digging a Hole in the Carpet

A project log for Little Friend

This companion robot, 9000 farads of super capacitance, spends less than eight minutes feeding--then 75 minutes or more she can be a buddy.

mike-rigsbyMike Rigsby 06/24/2016 at 22:540 Comments

Mato, with her 9000 farads of capacitance, (translation, add about 3 pounds of weight) was leaving a trail in the carpet with her small caster wheel. Something had to be done, so I enlarged the caster base (not the bolt to frame pattern) and enlarged the caster wheel. The larger caster base file is available on this site in the files--the caster ball just needs to be printed at 155% size. The interesting thing about enlarging things in the 3d printing world, is that total size is cubed (length times 1.5, width times 1.5, height times 1.5--volume and print time more like 1.5 cubed).

Next, I charged the capacitors up to 8 volts.

With the new caster wheel, Mato takes on more of a "racing" look--back end elevated.

Here she is running around on the carpet (using 31% less energy with her larger caster wheel) and not leaving a visible trace.

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