Micro MIll

I recently picked up this MicroMark mill. I got it off craigslist (Chicago) with a whole bunch of tooling. The cart / stand is from a hospital that also came from Craig's list.

The mill came with a DRO on the 3 axis's but the goofy rubber plugs that plug into the scales were so loose that the readout would not work half the time.

So, like  any other enthusiast I just cut them off and soldered the wires directly to the circuit board.

Once they were soldered  I assembled the units back together and I put some silicon in the pockets to seal them.

Here is a great site explaining how the scales work and the wiring if you ever want to build your own DRO.

Telepresence Robot

I'm always on the look out for new thing to use in building my robots or to make into robots. Recently I was scouring the local electronics recyclers and came across these hospital computer carts,  And the first thing that came to mind was that they would be a great start for a Telepresence Robot.

Has 17 inch monitor (12 vdc) with motherboard
Keyboard drawer
Battery and charger in base (Dead battery)
The center post also adjust up and down to vary the height.

My plan is to replace the rear caster with  drive wheels to move it around.

Bargain robots Pr2 robot. (pt 2)

It's Alive. Finally got time to get to Microcenter and get a Wifi antenna. Also purchased a new battery since my second battery would not charge any more. Started running the computer off a 12v dc power supply. Downloaded Willows Garage ROS and began doing the tutorials.

Bargain Pr2 robot.

In my last posting I showed the Cybermotion K2A robot that I purchased.  Once I got it home and on the bench for a close inspection. I realized that I would not be using any of the stock controls for my new project for several reasons.
1. The Motherboard was 486 processor. With no HD
2. The motor control along with the encoders was made up of 7400 series DIPS from 1980.
3. There was no support or manuals anywhere to be found on the Internet, so all rebuilding and fixing would have to be metered out.

And the base / body just looked ugly.

So I took off the old components and boxed them up for storage.

The cleaned base with new components added.

Battery trays installed to hold 12v 17ah batteries.

Top view of computer platform. Zotac mother board 9300 wifi series. 250 watt DC-DC car computer power supply and
hard drive that needs mounting brackets still. In the center is the slip ring connector for power from the base.

Sabertooth 2x25 drive fot the motor control and Arduino to test the motor operation and encoder programming.