Know what you mean ... I've got tons of parts - for those "someday"
projects :-)
The executors of my estate are NOT gonna be happy.
Hell, even have a ZX-81 in The Heap somewhere :-)
Whoever cleans up after me would be best served with a 5 gallon can of
gasoline and a match. There are several books about 'Swedish death
cleaning'. Supposedly the Swedes have a word for getting rid of all your
junk before dying.
Post by rbowmanRight now I have a 4 wheel chassis with a primitive IR keypad
controller. The long range plan is to incorporate the PWM ability of
the L298Ns and go to the nfr240l01 for two way communication. The
problem is the chassis has limitations.
PWM ... why not steppers ?
Path of least resistance. There are a lot of chassis available in the $20
range. They're a couple of pieces of plexiglas, standoffs, encoders and
other hardware. Most include TT gearbox motors.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3777
I'd previously built a 3 wheel chassis with converted R/C servos but these
seemed a little more, um, finished looking. A problem with 4WD is the
motors don't have quite enough torque to skid steer for tight turns. You
need to reverse the drive on one side rather than just bulling around.
Build a better chassis ? Of course that requires the right tools,
which means off to the hardware store, which means bringing back a
bunch of other stuff you didn't know you needed and ........
I'm pretty sure I read it about 30 years ago but I'm reading Neal
Stephenson's 'Zodiac'. The protagonist goes to a hardware store to find
some way to block the ports in a chemical plants underwater diffuser.
He notes that young clerks try to be helpful while the older ones let you
wander around without bothering you knowing that almost nothing that's
bought in a hardware store is put to its intended use. I had to laugh
having been there too many times over the years.
I come across robotics sites selling more-or-less finished chassis.
Just bolt yer stuff on.
Yup.
Radio comms, esp with limited units like Ards, can be annoying. They
DO make an Uno with built-in wifi now - so depending on your coverage
you might be able to run it straight up from a laptop. There are
various 900 MHz bi-di modules too.
https://store.arduino.cc/products/arduino-uno-wifi-rev2
The R4? I've been working with the Pico W but the Arduino format is
attractive. I like the USB C rather than Micro USB. My eyes aren't what
they were 50 years ago. That's the mice thing about the original Uno --
you can't confuse USB B with anything as you search through the cable
collection.
The Pico does interest me. Basically a hopped-up microcontroller and
you can get wi-fi too. Looks easier than starting with a raw PIC or
'51 and building up from there.
As everyone moves to Arm M cores it's a little less like the wild west. I
never worked with the PICs, only the AVRs. Back then I was working with
assembly and the AVRs were more like the Intel devices I was familiar
with.
Just glad a LOT of people are still into this sort of stuff - don't
think a smartphone is the end-all of tech. The spirit of Radio Shack
lives on. :-)
When they built the new library they incorporated a maker space rather
than a few things stuffed into a meeting room. I don't think it's a formal
class but someone is available Saturdays to help with Arduino projects.