THIS IS THE DROID YOUR LOOKING FOR.

I have just sold my tracked robot on eBay. While driving it around was eventful, (sorry for running over your flowers Deb) the actual fun for me lied in the design and build. A while ago I came across these surplus hospital carts on Craigslist and I thought those would make an interesting robot base.

This is the cart in its stock configuration. The base holds two 17ah 12v batteries and all the electronics.  The top has a keyboard drawer and mouse. The mast has a linear actuator in it to allow height adjustment of the table height.

 Unfortunately the monitor/computer was trashed but all of the internal wiring was there along with the two dead batteries. ( I gutted it all anyways.)  I knew from the start I was going to put two wheelchair motors on it, but that as far as it went for a while.
I tried to reuse the electronics but the company that made these is long gone and no schematics are available. 









Well lately I have been rather busy, but I finally figured how to get all the components into the base. I gutted the inside of the original battery case and removed all cast in mounts at stiffeners. I then cut an aluminum plate for the bottom, then set the batteries in and welded sides onto it to enclose them. I then mounted the motherboard to the back of the aluminum enclosure with the sides holding the CPU power supply and the motor drivers.

 Here are the gearboxes without the motors on them. 3/8" aluminum welded to the stock frame. Motors, wheels and gearboxes are from a powered wheelchair.