Self Balancing Robot – V4

It’s been almost 4 years since I started playing with self balancing robots posting about the very first version, then the 2nd really unsuccessful one and finally a really jittery / impossible to control 3rd version…

Now it’s finally time to show you something that actually works !

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Android IOIO Wii Motion Plus – Gyroscopes

First of all, the more I work with Android, the more I love it … ! It’s so cool to have both Linux and Java and everything is so open and hackable … !

Wii Motion Plus connected to the IOIO board and then to the Android phone

Motor vibrations

No motors running, just "natural" noise of the sensors...

This post is obviously related to my “roman-fleuve” post about my attempt at building a quadcopter… I’ve decided however to create a new post as the initial one has already become too long, and dealing with vibrations is a more general mechanical question, that applies to much more than just quadcopters.

I still don’t know why my quadcopter refuses to balance properly, and to be honest it could be anything: the frame, the motors, the ESCs, the code, literally ANYTHING !

However, I have the feeling it’s related to vibrations, and there’s only one way to find out: done with the funny part of building the quad, now enters the tedious/annoying task of setting a vibrations test bench and do some measurements…

Wii motion plus and Arduino

The Wii Motion Plus and a Solarbotics adapter for easy connection

As you might know from one of my previous posts, I’ve burned (I only now start to have an idea of a possible cause…) part of my Razor 9DOF IMU board. I can still use the accelerometer and magnetometer on it, BUT the gyroscopes (though I’m sure they are both fine) can’t be accessed simply because they are not on the I2C buss and it’s impossible for me to solder wires onto them…

So I’ve decided to explore the idea of using the Wii motion plus gyroscopes instead, especially that there are several people out there that have quadcopters flying with them !  (combined or not with nunchuck accelerometers…)