Some more advanced moves for the hexapod! Still running on the arduino which has its work cut out for it, with all the trigonomic functions xD

I made a more general function for taking a single step. It accepts a step size, step direction, and whether to rotate in place or not.

To walk multiple steps i call the step function repeatedly, and any changes in the parameters are seamlessly applied.

Now i just need to make the rotate-in-place functionality continous instead of yes/no so that the hexapod can walk forward while turning the body.

Motor troubles is sorted! I added the reat of the decoupling capacitors that i used in the first test. I also dropped the motor voltage from ~6.6 to ~4.5V. This makes them less twitchy.

That has made all the motor problems disappear and now they properly power on.

It is powered from 4 LiPos via the custom BMS&power supply board and it is being controlled from an Arduino Uno. The walking gait is almost fully parameterized, the only thing that is missing is a speed adjustment. I can specify the direction to walk and the body height, and everything gets solved to provide the animation paths.

I have enough confidence in the BMS & power supply board that i am ready to start powering some motors from it. The decoupling capacitors are glued to the side of the first servo and hidden/protected by a cover. I am not sure if 470uF per 3 motors is sufficient, but i guess we are gonna find out together.

The motors are connected to a shared (actual) voltage rail on tue hexapod body.

A diversion from the hexapod project. I have a set of Philips 22RH532 motional feedback speakers, i got them from my dad who in turn got them from his uncle.

These are exceptionally high quality hifi speakers, and they get a flat response down to 35Hz thanks to the accelerometer built into the bass speaker which is used in a feedback loop. (1973!!!!)

They are old, dusty and have accumulated quite a bit of tar (smoking). I've already recapped both speakers but i want to give these a proper restoration so i'm taking them apart a second time.

I finished cleaning the first board: i had to desolder _everything_, gently clean the board(the silkscreen is slightly alcohol-soluble...) then clean every component and solder them back. The result is well worth it, this board is squeaky clean.

And it's painted! Man i love this colour, it's so pretty and it reminds me of the original gameboy advance.

It just needs some labelling. I might print myself some labels at work, They don't mind that.

I made an ATX power supply into a simple lab supply with 5 voltage rails! I drilled some holes into the body, mountee the binding posts and other components, and wired them up with thick gauge wire. The amber led goes to the 5V stand-by rail to indicate mains power, the switch goes to the ATX power on signal, and the green led is connected to the power good signal. It generates +12V, +5V, +3.3V, -5V and -12V.

I also made a broken binding post. As in, i broke it. Quite literally. Damn things are made of chinesium.

This, together with my adjustable single rail lab supply will probably satisfy my power needs for the upcoming few years.

I'll probably give this a paint in a loud colour. Purple.

Man I am in a good flow!

I have now added all the measurements i can perform to my hexapod power supply. It monitors battery cell voltage, current, and the output power rails. It also measures and records the amount of energy that's extracted from the battery (or added in case you're charging).

It sends this data over a serial port so it can be read by whatever device wishes to monitor these values.

Next up, implement the proper charging functionality, including cell balancing and add some more protection features. I also need to add the EEPROM functionality. And theres quite a bit of optimization to do but i'm being careful of doing it prematurely.