Author Archives: engineerzero

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About engineerzero

Once and future engineer.

Variations on a brushbot

In my continuing efforts to find a simple product to market, I thought, “Why don’t I make some upgrade mods to the conventional brushbot?” So I ordered a brushbot kit from Maker Shed, and modified as shown. The long green … Continue reading

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Weighing Robotics

Some weights that are interesting to know. Display has one decimal place, so that 442 = 44.2. The display does have a decimal point, but it doesn’t show at the angle of the photos. Sorry. This is an Uno R3. … Continue reading

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Grisbot with Arduino

Here is a preliminary design of a dual tray assembly that can carry both an Arduino and a mini bread board: Here’s an underview, showing how it all fits onto the robot body: As is, the tray assembly can’t be … Continue reading

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Metric Blue Assembled

Metric Blue is now assembled sufficiently for operational testing. There was a bit of a tense moment when I discovered that I had connected the 9v battery lead to the voltage regulator’s 5v row, but miraculously nothing got fried. Though … Continue reading

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Micro Servo Gear Pry Tool

In the process of converting a micro servo to continuous rotation, it is necessary to open the housing and pry the gears off the servo base one at a time. However, my fingers are just too big and clumsy to … Continue reading

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Metric Blue Test Phase

A quick trip to Vetco this morning, and I got some 22uF ceramic capacitors to replace the electrolytics that I was using in Metric Blue’s circuit. The LED blinked on cue. Success! Then the screen read test was getting error … Continue reading

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Troubleshooting and Fault Isolation

The freshly-breadboarded circuit for my new robot, Metric Blue, isn’t working. When the switch is flipped, the servos make a little noise for an instant, indicating that power is getting to them. But the LED never blinks the ‘ready’ signal. … Continue reading

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Why Breadboarding is like Hiragana

In the Japanese writing syllabary known as hiragana, stroke order is important to properly compose the characters. Likewise, in building a bread board circuit, it’s important to figure out the order of installing the wires and components. Otherwise you find … Continue reading

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Rodents Inspect Robots

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Grisbot in metric

I decided to completely redraw minigrisbot in millimeters instead of inches, and it went much, much faster. Friends don’t let friends design robots in English units. (Pouring ale is another matter.) But why re-design something that’s already designed? In case … Continue reading

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