Dale's Homemade Robots

Links you may find useful

Kits & Information - Beginners start here

• Science Kits: Robot kits
• Kits USA: Cheap robot kits and many others
• Society of Robots: Many useful robot tutorals, calculators and "how to" info
• Ohms Law Calculators
• Physics Resources: How real electric motors work
• Jameco's Robot Store: Robot kits and parts
• Vex Robotics: Erector Set style robot building kit
• Parallax: Robot kits and parts
• The Robot Room: David Cooks site has lots of robot projects
• Lynxmotion: Walking robot kits
• Lego Mindstorm: Lego based robot kits
• Datasheets360  Data sheets for electronic parts

 

Robot Parts Stores

• The Robot Store: Motors, chips, sensors etc.
  
• Spark Fun: Sensors, GPS, LCDs, and much more
  
• Parallax: Basic Stamp and more
  
• Lynxmotion: Robot kits, motors and more
  
• Servo City: Servos
  
• Pololu: Parts, kits, custom laser cutting of plastics
  
• Robot Marketplace: Combat robot parts, motors, batteries, R/C TX/RX
• NPC Robotics: Combat robot motors and more

 

Arduino

• Arduino Home Page
• How to get high speed PWM from 8 bit Arduinos

 

Engineering units converters

• Quarkel.com
• OnlineConversion.com

Schematic and PC Board CAD software

• Eagle schematic and board layout editor for Linux

Atmel AVR microcontrollers

• AVR Tutorial
• Free Linux AVR development software (C compiler, Assembler, Programmer, etc)
• AVR Freaks web site (Windows centric)
• AVRdude programmer software for Linux (works with many programmers)
• Atmel AVR Programmer (serial port type)
• PDF file with programmer schematic and theory of operation

 

Atmel AVR free development tools for Mac OS-X

• Cross Pack AVR Development for OS-X (Easy install)

 

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RF modules for short range telemetry

• XBee modules
• Linx Technologies RF module data
• ABACOM Technologies RF modules

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Motors

• Pololu
• Aveox
• Pittman

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Batteries

• Using A123 lithium cells
• A123 Systems home page
• Another page with A123 info

 

Materials Properties

• Densities of Solids
• Metal weight calculator

• Helpful Tips Helpful Tips On Working With Polycarbonate

  What glue to use with various materials

 

 

Misc.

• Animated mechanisms - unusual gears, cams and wonderfully strange mechanisms
• Cycloidal Transmission speed reducer
• Another cycloid speed reducer
• Make your own wheels
• Cast your own silicone tires
• How PID (Porportional Integral Derivative) control systems work
• Collection of Kinematic Mechanisms
• Gearwheels from hell
• How to make PC boards using toner transfer
• Gear formulas
• Wheel speed calculator
• Circle Calculator
• Shaft torsion calculator

 

Machining

• Drill Point Geometry
• Handy Hints
• Designing gear cutters
• Making gear cutters (video)
• Broaching internal gears on lathe
• MIT videos on machine shop operations
• Helical gear calculator

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