Chassis Mods

Shown here are some of the recent mods done to the chassis. On top are the chassis side mounts, with cooling fans and part of the canopy installed. The cross-flow of the dual fans should provide enough cooling to keep the PC104 core running consistantly.

In the centre are the results of the first manufacture of the black HDPE. Although cumulatively the two components took almost 2 hours to machine (due to the small scallop height, approx 0.1mm), the end results were good.

On the bottom is the battery pack for the 'bot. Polystyrene separators between the batteries will ensure that the pack will keep its shape when placed inside the battery bay of the robot.

Payload Bay Manufacture

New plastic was purchased for the new-look robot. Shown at the top is the new scheme - black and orange (the perspex is still covered with protective plastic). It seems that the blach UHDPE seems slightly more difficult to machine.

The lower shot shows the manufacture of both sides of the payload bay. PRO/Manufacture in Wildfire 3.0 has the capacity to generate mirrored toolpaths, and therefore the manufacture of mirrored parts is much simpler.

Design & RTD Boards

Incorporated into the design now is a prototype paylaod bay, as well as battery mounts and heat sinks for th eH-Bridge chips.

Tonight the drivers for the DM6816 and DM6420 finally compiled. All of the board self tests came backl positive, so the boards are functioning & what remains is to incorporate the libraries in to a .mex file and link it to the Matlab code.