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Bringing you up to speed.... part 2 (with some pictures this time)

A project log for K-9

Raspberry Pi powered K-9 GUV with a NES controller style remote

andrew-billsAndrew Bills 03/05/2016 at 02:212 Comments

Sorry didnt realise I couldnt edit the project log but just a couple of images to help with the previous log...

As an overview the basic concept will be like this. Ultrasonics for forward, left and right. With an additional ultrasonic being down facing in the head so K9 doesn't get driven or drive down stairs.

Also in the head will be the RPi camera mounted in the eye port with the microphone in the nose & 3W speaker also in the head. While the voice recognition may not be available to start with it's easier to just wire it up now. I am also going to have a master power switch under the head which should be hidden enough but accessible in case of emergency.

On one side the RFID will be mounted behind the panel builders often use for a TV (I thought it a waste of power) with the bottom half of the panel being able to be lifted up for access to motors/batteries. The opposite side will have the top half of the panel being able to be lifted up for access to the induction charger + internal storage shelf.

The electronics will be mounted on a piece of perspex under the top with the panel on top being flip up to access the touchscreen for basic functions. I will put a second piece of perspex under the layer with the electrics mounted to protect the wires from being touched/pulled accidentally. So sandwich style with a 50mm motherboard mount spacer holding them together.

The perspex I have marked out but as I havent recieved the mounts yet there isnt much rush to cut yet. There will be the 2 perspex of the larger size as mentioned for sandwiching the electrics but I also have 2 more smaller pieces for side mounting of the RFID reader & another for the 24v relay, 24v power rails & the motor controller for down lower. I want to mount those parts vertically so I can see the wiring if I need to get to it.

Most of the power stuff is together with the XBEE & GPS specifically being closer to the tail where the high gain antenna will be (I have a multiband antenna on it's way also that should do the 1500 range for GPS & 2400 (2.4) range for XBEE. The Amp & the 9DOF are also mounted here with the 9DOF being as central as possible.

The RPi & Touchscreen is shown upside down here as it will be face up for access from under the top panel. Also the USB plugs are accessible from the storage panel side so I can remove the WIFI dongle, add a keyboard or even a storage key if I want to do some timelapse. The rest of the parts will be mounted 'upside down' as shown. I will be adding a couple of holes to run zip ties through for the purpose of cable guides/management (you might see the small squares in pencil). The Logic convertor will need some ties to keep it in place as it has no mounting holes.

Missing from the below is the amp but that will be towards the top at the back.

Lastly is the controller which will have a layout like the below. I have modified the shell I have to remove some of the mounts that reduce the amount of space & also removed the onboard jst/lipo connector to replace it with one on a short lead. I did that because the lipo connector height was too big without making a custom back for the NES (which I might do in future, originally I wanted a GPS in this unit too but that wasnt going to happen with the current space).

You can see from the below the controller with the layout of the PCB that ill get to put under the existing button pads and then wire to the Arduino (that will be fun to get the wires the right length & all to fit in the space). Current thoughts are the controller commands will be fairly basic with them just being broadcast then the 'paired' droid acting on them. That should mean I wont need to open this up again. I know you can wire up a XBEE to allow for wireless bootloading but with the amount of time it takes for parts to get to me Im not so keen on that if there is a problem.

Also missing from this is the RFID id tag which is going to be the glass one stuck to one side of the controller. The read range of the ID20 is about 2-4cm (I tried putting stuff in the way and the range was pretty consistant) so it should be able to read through the side panel in K9 providing I mount the reader flush as possible.

Ok that's it for today. Soon as the mounts arrive for the components I can start cutting perspex & mounting then start really playing.

Discussions

K.C. Lee wrote 03/05/2016 at 02:27 point

You should be able to edit project logs.  I do that all the time to fix mistakes or add extra items to existing log.

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Andrew Bills wrote 03/05/2016 at 10:40 point

I obviously need to spend some more time to find that... I did have a look for it before. (ah found it.... right at the top above the title, clearly not where I was expecting. Thanks for telling me it is there)

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