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Mega Flex Main Components 01

Flexible Hardware
Design Project

Mega Flex PCB02 Front01 500w

 

This robotics project, started in July '21, has the aim to develop a Flexible Hardware Design:

  • that uses a single 3D printed chassis plate which accommodates all the various options of,
  • a range of standard build components with their associated 3D printed fittings/mounts, 
  • that also allows optional robot system controllers e.g. any of the Raspberry Pi SBCs or microcontrollers like the ESP32, and 
  • can use their existing Maker PCBs to simplify and manage all the system interconnect, as well as using
  • a new, more dedicated, Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design with very flexible usage options.

The table below illustrates the intent to be able to use at least three types of system controller, i.e.

  • all the various Raspberry Pi single board computer (SBC) variants;
  • a 38 pin ESP32 microcontroller module; and
  • the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller.

Importantly, for each of the system controller types the existing respective Maker PCB assembled PCB can be 're-used' in a robot build to extend the scope and use of these Maker PCBs, and in addition a new 'single' PCB (the mega-flex PCB) is being designed that can be used to connect any of these three system controller options.

For all these options, the single 3D printed chassis plate is also being designed (and evolved!) to accommodate all the variations.

 

  RPi Maker PCB ESP32 Maker PCB Pico Maker PCB mega-flex PCB
Any of the Raspberry Pi single board computers (SBCs)

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ESP32 microcontroller  

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Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller    

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All the 3D print designs are available from the Prusa web site here and the software for the various builds will be made available from here once it has been developed to a reasonable level.


As another possible 'variation' a separate evaluation is underway to see if an NVIDIA Jetson Nano 'dev kit' could be used as another possible system controller.

This much more powerful processing platform with all of its AI/machine learning capabilities would enable a very functional robot to be built, but it has a much bigger 'footprint' than any of the other system controllers so 'fitting' all the drive, sensor and other components onto the current single 3D printed chassis plate is more challenging!

This possible additional development is being chronicled here.

 

All the detailed Flexible Hardware Design web pages:

 

 

Robotics projects:

 

 

All the currently available maker project information:

 

 

 

 


Page last modified on Tuesday 05 March 2024 12:45:15 GMT