It’s been some time since the last update however the project has been moving on at rapid pace. First, the alpha boards and dev kits have been completed and sent out to their owners in early August. In addition, the Tinymovr Github repository now hosts the complete array of Tinymovr modules: Firmware, client (Studio), documentation and some
CategoryProjects
Build logs of various projects
PCBWay fabrication: A review
A few weeks ago I was contacted by PCBWay with an offer for a PCB sponsorship in exchange for writing a review. I accepted, and below is my review of their service. At the time PCBWay contacted me I had a PCB design that I needed manufactured so I thought it’d be a good opportunity
Tinymovr alpha: Production Update #2
A short update featuring a video that demonstrates the Tinymovr alpha Dev Kit in action: Torque tests go up to 10A due to absence of a good ventilation system, but extrapolated you should be able to reach around 0.6Nm at 30A. Tinymovr alpha is now closed, however I’ve open sourced the STL files for the Dev
Tinymovr alpha: Production Update #1
Here is the first update on the Tinymovr alpha board and Dev Kit manufacturing progress. I have received all R3.2 PCBs from the manufacturer. Around half of the received boards are assembled and tested, and they perform as expected. For the rest I am waiting for components to be delivered, expected towards the end of
Tinymovr alpha Available
Tinymovr is entering alpha testing phase, and you are invited to participate! Head over to the linked form to get a super-early bird Tinymovr R3.2 Board or Dev Kit
Tinymovr – CAN Protocol, Improving Position Tracking
In the last post I covered improvements in the hardware side of Tinymovr R3.1 that resulted in a minor revision R3.2. This post will go over improvements on the Tinymovr firmware performed in the past couple months. CAN Bus Protocol Implementation of CAN communication is now complete, and Tinymovr is fully operable through CAN. In
Tinymovr: Dealing with an unexpected glitch
In this post I wanted to focus on Tinymovr firmware improvements and plan out the next steps, however an unexpected glitch had me spending all my development time on it and thus the rest of the updates have been pushed back a bit. Last week I put together a “torture test” for Tinymovr with the
Tinymovr R3 Update
Tinymovr R3 boards have recently arrived from China and I’ve been busy testing and improving things all over. Bottom line, they perform very well so far! The new MA702 encoder really makes a difference as angular position tracking is now super responsive and able to handle even the most vigorous accelerations. Due to the improved
Tinymovr: An Integrated Brushless Motor Controller
I must admit that I’ve neglected this blog for a while, as it has been almost six months since I wrote a new post. On the other hand, I have been very busy with the development of a brushless motor controller for robotics: Tinymovr, as well as an associated quadruped robot design. For the past
Building a better 3D printer
Two years ago I made the unfortunate mistake of pledging for the Obsidian 3D printer campaign on Kickstarter. It turned out to be a really lousy investment, seeing that as of this point, more than two years later, nothing has been delivered and no real prospect of delivery of any sort of product is in
Designing and Building an Agile Inverted Pendulum Robot
In several previous posts on this blog we went through the design/learning of control policies for virtual inverted pendulum robots in digital simulation. In this post we are going to discuss the design and building of a real-life inverted pendulum robot. While inverted pendulum is a very common theme in robotics, this particular design has
Designing a Brushless Quadruped Robot
Brushless motors are changing the landscape in robotics. Coupled with precise closed-loop control, they are able to deliver excellent power to weight ratio but most importantly, they are transparent in the sense that external forces acting on the mechanism are reflected on the motor and vice versa. This leads to mechanisms that are actively compliant,