- My recommendations for your first robot motors:
Voltage: 5V-8V
Torque: double what you think you will need
There are many websites selling DC motors. Also considering buyingservos. Both are equally as complicated to implement and cost about the same. Each have their own advantages. Servos are much easier to control, but they generally are less energy efficient, have explicit voltage requirements, and are less intuitive. Motors can take rough treatment and are efficient and powerful, but forget intelligent control cause it ain't happening. Expect to spend from $1-$40 per motor/servo. I recommend staying between $8-$20 each for your first robot. - My recommendation is to make a small sized robot and buy 2 NiMH 6V battery packs. Each about $10-$15 plus shipping. Get two so you can isolate motor power from circuitry power. As a beginner you do not want your motors interfering with or even melting your sensitive circuitry. Trust me. One battery for motors, and one for circuits. A NiMH will be fine for circuits, and either NiCad or NiMH for motors, depending on expected power requirements from your motors. Your choice. You can easily find batteries at RadioShack or any RC hobby website.
- Don't reinvent the wheel! Search the web for how other people did things, and copy them! It may be unoriginal, but hey it is your first robot, don't expect to develop the theory of relativity on your first try.
- Join a local robotics club. They have all the equipment and advice you will need. They also make a great support group. Perhaps you can even find a partner to build a robot together with (and split the costs with)?
- Join a robot competition. This will give you motivation, a design goal, and a deadline to finish your robot. Plus if you win $, your robot pays for itself. Just don't wait till 2 weeks before the competition to start! Also do not plan to win your first time unless you have FINISHED your robot a month before the competition. That way you have a lot of time to tweak and improve. Redesign your first robot after learning from your mistakes and enter again the next time.
- Buying parts is a skill. Finding them and making sure they are up to spec and affordable can be a challenge. Remember, many suppliers offer free samples of sensors and IC's to 'your company,' hint hint. Use our robot parts listto help get you started. Finally, the google ads on the top right of this site should also show robot parts suppliers.
- As the size of a robot increases linearly, the cost and difficulty to make it increases exponentially. Make it as small and light as possible.
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Ok now you got all this stuff, but still no robot. Now it is time to DESIGN, THEN BUILD, a robot chassis. The reason why I say design first is because planning things is generally always a good idea. Through experience I have found that for every hour I spend on design is one less hour I spend on construction (and usually low quality construction at that!). A beginner may have difficulty designing just because he/she wouldn't know what does/doesn't work. But I still recommend it. When I first started building robots, my time spent was about 5% designing. Now, a few years later as I am older and wiser, I spend about 90% of my robot building time in the design phase. My robots now are so well designed that the day I receive in the mail all my robot parts, within just a day or two, and sometimes even within just a few hours, I can have a fully constructed robot.Why so fast? Because I use a 3D CAD program that shows placement of all parts, screws, everything. Parts were intentionally designed to require the least amount of drilling and cutting effort. I even calculate expected forces and power requirements of everything to make sure it is all up to spec. Do you want to spend hours building something and in the end say, "crap it didn't work"? |