Tiger 1 BB airsoft RC Tank – V2

It’s all about the same project as here, BUT with a different technology: instead of using the FEZ Domino (.NET micro framework based) board, I’ll be using the Lego NXT controller and an Arduino board for low level interaction with the electronics.

NXT + Arduino internals

My first H-bridge

While working on my latest autonomous tank project, something very annoying happened: I needed to control 2 motors for the turret and the firing of the gun, BUT out of the 3 completely different motor controllers that I had laying around (a L293D based one, a pololu serial controller and a micro RC ESC) NONE was working… !!!

This was so frustrating, that it forced me to want to build my very first H-Bridge from scratch. This is something I had always avoided, thinking that “I had better things to do”, ie spend time on higher level stuff …

I started with this schema, taken from the Internet and slightly modified (it initially used 2.2KOhms resistors, but on all the other sites people were using 1K, as a better compromise):

TIP120 base H-Bridge motor controller

Tiger 1 BB airsoft RC Tank

CONTINUED HERE…

Together with a work colleague we have set ourselves a challenge: buy 2 1/16th RC tanks capable of firing BB pellets and transform them such that we can have an AUTONOMOUS BATTLE !

Unboxing

Lego NXT – Arduino Truck

New & improved NXT truck and LeJOS running brick !

The beast after the lifting...

NXT & LeJOS & Wii Nunchuck

the NXT controller, the Wii Nunchuck and the adapter

Finally !

IR Remote (Syma s026) dedicated board

Syma s026 Remote IR protocol decryptor

I’ve talked in at least 1 other post about how to use the Infra Red remote control of a toy helicopter (Syma s026) for other projects : once the protocol reverse engineered, it’s very easy to program a micro controller to listen to it and I find it very useful to integrate this into any project that needs some wireless remote controlling.

It’s also quite cheap, all you need is an IR receiver and the microcontroller that you alreay use in the given project…

BUT, the more I used it the more I hit one problem : it uses far too much of the MCU ressources, because the remote keeps sending 29 bytes signals all the time and you have to try to intercep them all to check if anything has changed in the commands sent !

FEZ Domino – .NET Micro Framework

Arduino is great !

But programming in high level languages like Java all day long at work, I was started to grow increasingly frustrated with having to worry about “details” like memory management, no multi threading, string manipulation, etc. ..

So I was really looking for a micro controller / board that could be programmed with “real” java, powerful enough so that one doesn’t have to spend 80% of the time optimising the code, etc. …

I don’t remember how, but I found this FEZ Domino board (from TinyCLR) on the internet and I IMMEDIATELY knew it was for me…

Quite pricey compared with Arduino, but I’ve had it for a month now, and it’s such a pleasure to work with it… you still have to worry about some optimisation (for example I’m having 3 IR receivers on my Toy Tank and they all use interrupts and I realised that if I’m not careful the delay introduced by each, can affect the correct timings of the others !).

FEZ Domino with the "Component Shield" on it (I don't like the JST cable, I much prefer the RC servos ones)

Now I’m upgrading the Toy Tank to use this much more powerful board.

Electric remote controlled Tiger 1 Tank toy + arduino

It all started when I found this ex-display toy in a store, for “only” 30£ (rather than the initial 90£), because it was missing its remote…

Wow, something cheap and “not working” is the perfect excuse to open and hack it straight away…

RX5_ATS305R Pin FUNCTIONS

RX5_ATS305R Pin OUTS

Freeduino Rover

- Rover chasis from RobotShop.ca

- Freeduino from MaxSerial

- Solarbotics motors

- still have the Lego NXT I2C communication cable connected

- IR receiver from a toy

… still building it…

While building it...

While in London…

- chassis from a remote controlled toy (present for my birthday, thanks Anne… )

- BasicAtom based

- PicAxe + Xbee wireless enabled

- IR Range Finder (Sharp GPD12 IR)

- Motor Controller (Pololu smc05)

Notice on the right the IR Range Finder (Sharp GPD12 IR) and the MotorController (Pololu smc05)