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The
front and rear sets of legs can now be incorporated into
the rocking mechanism.
M3x10
screws are inserted through the remaining holes in the rod
panel and through the central holes in each of the four
legs, as can clearly be seen.
It
should be noted that at this stage in the construction,
the front legs of Avoider are not attached to the side panels.
this step is done at a later date since the screws locating
the legs will also hold the rear dome in position.
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Double
check all the screw types used to attach the legs
and make
sure the correct type is used in each case
- it is easy to make a mistake with this one
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Having
now assembled the main body of Avoider, we can now turn
our attention to the electronic aspects of the construction.
The
motor wires must carefully be inserted through the plastic
pipes, blue and orange through one pipe and green and yellow
through the second pipe. One wire should be inserted at
a time, with the second wire passed through the pipe rather
like sewing, through each section at a time. Although rather
fiddly, this can be achieved quite easily if this method
is followed.
The
round terminal of the wires are then fed through the holes
in the plastic rear dome for connection to the PC board,
as can clearly be seen in the right hand photograph.
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Once the motor wires have been fed through the holes in
the dome, the red and black wires from the battery holder
and the 9V batter snap can likewise be fed through the two
remaining holes in the dome ready for connection to the
PC board.
The
next step is to wire in the PC board itself, carefully
following the wiring table in the instruction manual. All
the wires must be fed through the opening at the top of
th ePC board before connecting the terminals with the aid
of long-nose pliers. This can be a fairly fiddly operation,
and care should be taken not to damage any of the terminals.
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Further
views of the PC board. The left hand photograph shows the
board in position within the plastic dome. The black object
top left on the board as seen is the phototransistor, which
has been covered with a 5mm length of black tube. This in
effect aims the phototransistor frontwards. Together with
the LED this is the "eye" of Avoider. The robot
emits a red light and judges by the reflection if there
are any obstacles ahead. the light sensor (phototransistor)
distinguishes obstacles in front and gives signals to alter
the rotating direction of the motor to evade obstacles.
The
right hand photograph shows the wiring sequence of the PC
board: the red and black wires connect the battery terminals,
the adjacent four wires are the motor wires passing through
the plastic tubes, while the blue and yellow wires on the
extreme right are for the LED.
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The
LED with its yellow and blue wires is passed through the
white stopper and pushed into its locating hole in the front
dome. Crimps have to be fixed to the bare ends of the wire
for attachment to the PC board.
Attention
can now be passed to the two motors, one for each set
of three legs.
Each
motor has to be inserted into its special plastic holder
and the pinion gear pushed on to the end of the drive shaft.
This requires a certain amount of force. The plastic cover
should be placed over the motor allowing the terminals and
the flat side of the motor top to locate in their holes.
The terminals should be bent out a little to prevent damage
and the cover gently tapped with a hammer until properly
located. the pinion gear can then be pushed on until flush
with the end of the shaft.
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The
motors must then be mounted onto the base. One clip
of the motor cover should be slid into position on the motor
base. The motor housing sides should then be squeezed slightly
to allow the remaining two clips to snap into place. this
should be repeated for both motors.
Here
you can see two different views of the motor housings correctly
mounted.
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The
dome and the PC board can now be secured,
held in place by the M3x14 tapping screws which also attach
the tops of the front legs to the side panels, as can be
seen in the left-hand photograph. As before, the screw passes
through a metal spacer which allows the leg to move freely.
The
right-hand photograph shows the batter snap and battery
holder ready for insertion into the battery cradles - Avoider
is almost complete!
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