How to make a robot at home for a child? Small homemade robot How to make a robot using scrap materials.
Nowadays, few people remember, unfortunately, that in 2005 there were the Chemical Brothers and they had a wonderful video - Believe, where a robotic hand chased the hero of the video around the city.
Then I had a dream. Unrealistic at that time, because I didn’t have the slightest idea about electronics. But I wanted to believe - believe. 10 years have passed, and just yesterday I managed to assemble my own robotic arm for the first time, put it into operation, then break it, fix it, and put it back into operation, and along the way, find friends and gain confidence in my own abilities.
Attention, there are spoilers below the cut!
It all started with (hello, Master Keith, and thank you for allowing me to write on your blog!), which was almost immediately found and selected after this article on Habré. The website says that even an 8-year-old child can assemble a robot - why am I any worse? I'm just trying my hand at it in the same way.
At first there was paranoia
As a true paranoid, I will immediately express the concerns that I initially had regarding the designer. In my childhood, first there were good Soviet designers, then Chinese toys that crumbled in my hands... and then my childhood ended :(Therefore, from what remained in the memory of toys was:
- Will the plastic break and crumble in your hands?
- Will the parts fit loosely?
- Will the set not contain all the parts?
- Will the assembled structure be fragile and short-lived?
- Some parts will have to be finished with a file.
- And some of the parts simply won’t be in the set
- And another part will not work initially, it will have to be changed
The details of the designer not only fit together perfectly, but also the fact that the details are almost impossible to confuse. True, with German pedantry, the creators set aside exactly as many screws as needed, therefore, it is undesirable to lose screws on the floor or confuse “which goes where” when assembling the robot.
Specifications:
Length: 228 mm
Height: 380 mm
Width: 160 mm
Assembly weight: 658 gr.
Nutrition: 4 D batteries
Weight of objects lifted: up to 100 g
Backlight: 1 LED
Control type: wired remote control
Estimated build time: 6 hours
Movement: 5 brushed motors
Protection of the structure when moving: ratchet
Mobility:
Capture mechanism: 0-1,77""
Wrist movement: within 120 degrees
Elbow movement: within 300 degrees
Shoulder movement: within 180 degrees
Rotation on the platform: within 270 degrees
You will need:
- extra long pliers (you can't do without them)
- side cutters (can be replaced with a paper knife, scissors)
- crosshead screwdriver
- 4 D batteries
Important! About small details
Speaking of “cogs”. If you have encountered a similar problem and know how to make the assembly even more convenient, welcome to the comments. For now, I'll share my experience.Bolts and screws that are identical in function but different in length are clearly stated in the instructions, for example, on medium photo below we see bolts P11 and P13. Or maybe P14 - well, that is, again, I'm confusing them again. =)
You can distinguish them: the instructions indicate which one is how many millimeters. But, firstly, you won’t sit with a caliper (especially if you are 8 years old and/or you simply don’t have one), and, secondly, in the end you can only distinguish them if you put them next to each other, which may not happen right away came to mind (didn't occur to me, hehe).
Therefore, I’ll warn you in advance if you decide to build this or a similar robot yourself, here’s a hint:
- or take a closer look at the fastening elements in advance;
- or buy yourself more small screws, self-tapping screws and bolts so as not to worry.
Also, never throw anything away until you have finished assembling. In the bottom photo in the middle, between two parts from the body of the robot’s “head” there is a small ring that almost went into the trash along with other “scraps”. And this, by the way, is a holder for an LED flashlight in the “head” of the gripping mechanism.
Build process
The robot comes with instructions without unnecessary words - only images and clearly cataloged and labeled parts.The parts are quite easy to bite off and do not require cleaning, but I liked the idea of processing each part with a cardboard knife and scissors, although this is not necessary.
The build begins with four of the five included motors, which are a real pleasure to assemble: I just love gear mechanisms.
We found the motors neatly packaged and “sticking” to each other - get ready to answer the child’s question about why commutator motors are magnetic (you can immediately in the comments! :)
Important: in 3 out of 5 motor housings you need recess the nuts on the sides- in the future we will place the bodies on them when assembling the arm. Side nuts are not needed only in the motor, which will form the basis of the platform, but in order not to remember later which body goes where, it is better to bury the nuts in each of the four yellow bodies at once. Only for this operation you will need pliers; they will not be needed later.
After about 30-40 minutes, each of the 4 motors was equipped with its own gear mechanism and housing. Putting everything together is no more difficult than putting together Kinder Surprise in childhood, only much more interesting. Question for care based on the photo above: three of the four output gears are black, where is the white one? Blue and black wires should come out of its body. It’s all in the instructions, but I think it’s worth paying attention to it again.
After you have all the motors in your hands, except for the “head” one, you will begin assembling the platform on which our robot will stand. It was at this stage that I realized that I had to be more thoughtful with screws and bolts: as you can see in the photo above, I didn’t have enough two screws for fastening the motors together using the side nuts - they were already screwed into the depth of the already assembled platform. I had to improvise.
Once the platform and main part of the arm are assembled, the instructions will prompt you to move on to assembling the gripper mechanism, which is full of small parts and moving parts - the fun part!
But, I must say that this is where the spoilers will end and the video will begin, since I had to go to a meeting with a friend and had to take the robot with me, which I couldn’t finish in time.
How to become the life of the party with the help of a robot
Easily! When we continued assembling together, it became clear: to assemble the robot yourself - Very Nice. Working on a design together is doubly pleasant. Therefore, I can confidently recommend this set for those who do not want to sit in a cafe having boring conversations, but want to see friends and have a good time. Moreover, it seems to me that team building with such a set - for example, assembly by two teams, for speed - is almost a win-win option.The robot came to life in our hands as soon as we finished assembling it. Unfortunately, I cannot convey our delight to you in words, but I think many here will understand me. When a structure that you assembled yourself suddenly begins to live a full life - it’s a thrill!
We realized that we were terribly hungry and went to eat. It wasn't far to go, so we carried the robot in our hands. And then another pleasant surprise awaited us: robotics is not only exciting. It also brings people closer together. As soon as we sat down at the table, we were surrounded by people who wanted to get to know the robot and build one for themselves. Most of all, the kids liked to greet the robot “by the tentacles,” because it really behaves like it’s alive, and, first of all, it’s a hand! In a word, the basic principles of animatronics were mastered intuitively by users. This is what it looked like:
Troubleshooting
Upon returning home, an unpleasant surprise awaited me, and it’s good that it happened before the publication of this review, because now we will immediately discuss troubleshooting.Having decided to try to move the arm through the maximum amplitude, we managed to achieve a characteristic crackling sound and failure of the functionality of the motor mechanism in the elbow. At first this upset me: well, it’s a new toy, just assembled, and it no longer works.
But then it dawned on me: if you just collected it yourself, what was the point? =) I know very well the set of gears inside the case, and in order to understand whether the motor itself is broken, or whether the case was simply not secured well enough, you can, without removing the motor from the board, give it a load and see if the clicks continue.
This is where I managed to feel hereby robo-master!
Having carefully disassembled the “elbow joint”, it was possible to determine that without load the motor runs smoothly. The case came apart, one of the screws fell inside (because it was magnetized by the motor), and if we had continued operation, the gears would have been damaged - when disassembled, a characteristic “powder” of worn-out plastic was found on them.
It is very convenient that the robot did not have to be disassembled entirely. And it’s really cool that the breakdown occurred due to not entirely accurate assembly in this place, and not due to some factory difficulties: they were not found in my kit at all.
Advice: The first time after assembly, keep a screwdriver and pliers at hand - they may come in handy.
What can be taught thanks to this set?
Self confidence!Not only did I find common topics to communicate with absolutely strangers, but I also managed to not only assemble, but also repair the toy myself! This means I have no doubt: everything will always be ok with my robot. And this is a very pleasant feeling when it comes to your favorite things.
We live in a world where we are terribly dependent on sellers, suppliers, service employees and the availability of free time and money. If you know how to do almost nothing, you will have to pay for everything, and most likely overpay. The ability to fix a toy yourself, because you know how every part of it works, is priceless. Let the child have such self-confidence.
Results
What I liked:- The robot, assembled according to the instructions, did not require debugging and started immediately
- The details are almost impossible to confuse
- Strict cataloging and availability of parts
- Instructions you don't need to read (images only)
- Absence of significant backlashes and gaps in structures
- Ease of assembly
- Ease of prevention and repair
- Last but not least: you assemble your toy yourself, Filipino children don’t work for you
- More fastening elements, stock
- Parts and spare parts for it so that they can be replaced if necessary
- More robots, different and complex
- Ideas on what can be improved/added/removed - in short, the game doesn’t end with assembly! I really want it to continue!
Assembling a robot from this construction set is no more difficult than a puzzle or Kinder Surprise, only the result is much larger and caused a storm of emotions in us and those around us. Great set, thanks
Make a robot very simple Let's figure out what it takes to create a robot at home, in order to understand the basics of robotics.
Surely, after watching enough movies about robots, you have often wanted to build your own comrade in battle, but you didn’t know where to start. Of course, you won't be able to build a bipedal Terminator, but that's not what we're trying to achieve. Collect simple robot anyone who knows how to hold a soldering iron correctly in their hands can do it and this does not require deep knowledge, although it will not hurt. Amateur robotics is not much different from circuit design, only much more interesting, because it also involves areas such as mechanics and programming. All components are easily available and are not that expensive. So progress does not stand still, and we will use it to our advantage.
Introduction
So. What is a robot? In most cases, this is an automatic device that responds to any actions environment. Robots can be controlled by humans or perform pre-programmed actions. Typically, the robot is equipped with a variety of sensors (distance, rotation angle, acceleration), video cameras, and manipulators. The electronic part of the robot consists of a microcontroller (MC) - a microcircuit that contains a processor, a clock generator, various peripherals, RAM and permanent memory. There are a huge number of different microcontrollers in the world for different applications, and on their basis you can assemble powerful robots. For amateur buildings wide application found AVR microcontrollers. They are by far the most accessible and on the Internet you can find many examples based on these MKs. To work with microcontrollers, you need to be able to program in assembler or C and have basic knowledge of digital and analog electronics. In our project we will use C. Programming for MK is not much different from programming on a computer, the syntax of the language is the same, most functions are practically no different, and new ones are quite easy to learn and convenient to use.
What do we need
To begin with, our robot will be able to simply avoid obstacles, that is, repeat the normal behavior of most animals in nature. Everything we need to build such a robot can be found in radio stores. Let's decide how our robot will move. I consider the most successful tracks to be those used in tanks; these are the most convenient solution, because the tracks have greater maneuverability than the wheels of the car and are more convenient to control (to turn, it is enough to rotate the tracks in different directions). Therefore, you will need any toy tank whose tracks rotate independently of each other, you can buy one at any toy store at a reasonable price. From this tank you only need a platform with tracks and motors with gearboxes, the rest you can safely unscrew and throw away. We also need a microcontroller, my choice fell on ATmega16 - it has enough ports for connecting sensors and peripherals and in general it is quite convenient. You will also need to purchase some radio components, a soldering iron, and a multimeter.
Making a board with MK
In our case, the microcontroller will perform the functions of the brain, but we will not start with it, but with powering the robot’s brain. Proper nutrition- a guarantee of health, so we will start with how to properly feed our robot, because this is where novice robot builders usually make mistakes. And in order for our robot to work normally, we need to use a voltage stabilizer. I prefer the L7805 chip - it is designed to produce a stable 5V output voltage, which is what our microcontroller needs. But due to the fact that the voltage drop on this microcircuit is about 2.5V, a minimum of 7.5V must be supplied to it. Together with this stabilizer, electrolytic capacitors are used to smooth out voltage ripples and a diode must be included in the circuit to protect against polarity reversal.
Now we can move on to our microcontroller. The case of the MK is DIP (it’s more convenient to solder) and has forty pins. On board there is an ADC, PWM, USART and much more that we will not use for now. Let's look at a few important nodes. The RESET pin (9th leg of the MK) is pulled up by resistor R1 to the “plus” of the power source - this must be done! Otherwise, your MK may unintentionally reset or, more simply put, glitch. Another desirable measure, but not mandatory, is to connect RESET through the ceramic capacitor C1 to ground. In the diagram you can also see a 1000 uF electrolyte; it saves you from voltage dips when the engines are running, which will also have a beneficial effect on the operation of the microcontroller. Quartz resonator X1 and capacitors C2, C3 should be located as close as possible to pins XTAL1 and XTAL2.
I won’t talk about how to flash MK, since you can read about it on the Internet. We will write the program in C; I chose CodeVisionAVR as the programming environment. This is a fairly user-friendly environment and is useful for beginners because it has a built-in code creation wizard.
Motor control
An equally important component in our robot is the motor driver, which makes it easier for us to control it. Never and under no circumstances should motors be connected directly to the MK! In general, powerful loads cannot be controlled directly from the microcontroller, otherwise it will burn out. Use key transistors. For our case, there is a special chip - L293D. In such simple projects, always try to use this particular chip with the “D” index, as it has built-in diodes for overload protection. This microcircuit is very easy to control and is easy to get in radio stores. It is available in two packages: DIP and SOIC. We will use DIP in the package due to the ease of mounting on the board. L293D has separate power supply for motors and logic. Therefore, we will power the microcircuit itself from the stabilizer (VSS input), and the motors directly from the batteries (VS input). L293D can withstand a load of 600 mA per channel, and it has two of these channels, that is, two motors can be connected to one chip. But to be on the safe side, we will combine the channels, and then we will need one micra for each engine. It follows that the L293D will be able to withstand 1.2 A. To achieve this, you need to combine the micra legs, as shown in the diagram. The chip works in the following way: when a logical “0” is applied to IN1 and IN2, and a logical one is applied to IN3 and IN4, the motor rotates in one direction, and if the signals are inverted and a logical zero is applied, then the motor will begin to rotate in the other direction. Pins EN1 and EN2 are responsible for turning on each channel. We connect them and connect them to the “plus” of the power supply from the stabilizer. Since the microcircuit heats up during operation, and installing radiators on this type of case is problematic, heat removal is ensured by GND legs - it is better to solder them on a wide contact pad. That's all you need to know about engine drivers for the first time.
Obstacle sensors
So that our robot can navigate and not crash into everything, we will install two infrared sensor. Most the simplest sensor consists of an IR diode that emits in the infrared spectrum and a phototransistor that will receive the signal from the IR diode. The principle is this: when there is no obstacle in front of the sensor, the IR rays do not hit the phototransistor and it does not open. If there is an obstacle in front of the sensor, then the rays are reflected from it and hit the transistor - it opens and current begins to flow. The disadvantage of such sensors is that they can react differently to various surfaces and are not protected from interference - the sensor may accidentally trigger from extraneous signals from other devices. Modulating the signal can protect you from interference, but we won’t bother with that for now. For starters, that's enough.
Robot firmware
To revive a robot, you need to write firmware for it, that is, a program that would take readings from sensors and control the motors. My program is the simplest, it does not contain complex structures and everyone will understand. The next two lines include header files for our microcontroller and commands for generating delays:
#include
#include
The following lines are conditional because the PORTC values depend on how you connected the motor driver to your microcontroller:
PORTC.0 = 1; PORTC.1 = 0; PORTC.2 = 1; PORTC.3 = 0; The value 0xFF means that the output will be log. "1", and 0x00 is log. "0". With the following construction we check whether there is an obstacle in front of the robot and on which side it is: if (!(PINB & (1< If light from an IR diode hits the phototransistor, then a log is installed on the microcontroller leg. “0” and the robot starts moving backward to move away from the obstacle, then turns around so as not to collide with the obstacle again and then moves forward again. Since we have two sensors, we check for the presence of an obstacle twice - on the right and on the left, and therefore we can find out which side the obstacle is on. The command "delay_ms(1000)" indicates that one second will pass before the next command begins to execute. I've covered most of the aspects that will help you build your first robot. But robotics doesn't end there. If you assemble this robot, you will have a lot of opportunities to expand it. You can improve the robot's algorithm, such as what to do if the obstacle is not on some side, but right in front of the robot. It also wouldn’t hurt to install an encoder - a simple device that will help you accurately position and know the location of your robot in space. For clarity, it is possible to install a color or monochrome display that can show useful information - battery charge level, distance to obstacles, various debugging information. It wouldn't hurt to improve the sensors - installing TSOPs (these are IR receivers that perceive a signal only of a certain frequency) instead of conventional phototransistors. In addition to infrared sensors, there are ultrasonic sensors, which are more expensive and also have their drawbacks, but have recently been gaining popularity among robot builders. In order for the robot to respond to sound, it would be a good idea to install microphones with an amplifier. But what I think is really interesting is installing the camera and programming machine vision based on it. There is a set of special OpenCV libraries with which you can program facial recognition, movement according to colored beacons and many other interesting things. It all depends only on your imagination and skills. List of components: ATmega16 in DIP-40 package> L7805 in TO-220 package L293D in DIP-16 housing x2 pcs. resistors with a power of 0.25 W with ratings: 10 kOhm x 1 pc., 220 Ohm x 4 pcs. ceramic capacitors: 0.1 µF, 1 µF, 22 pF electrolytic capacitors: 1000 µF x 16 V, 220 µF x 16 V x 2 pcs. diode 1N4001 or 1N4004 16 MHz quartz resonator IR diodes: any two of them will do. phototransistors, also any, but responding only to the wavelength of infrared rays Firmware code: At the moment my robot is almost complete. It is equipped with a wireless camera, a distance sensor (both the camera and this sensor are installed on a rotating tower), an obstacle sensor, an encoder, a signal receiver from the remote control and an RS-232 interface for connecting to a computer. It operates in two modes: autonomous and manual (receives control signals from the remote control), the camera can also be turned on/off remotely or by the robot itself to save battery power. I am writing firmware for apartment security (transferring images to a computer, detecting movements, walking around the premises). One of the very time-consuming and exciting activities is building your own robot. Everyone, from teenagers to adults, dreams of making either a small and cute or a large and multifunctional robot, as many people have so many different modifications of robotics. Do you want to make a robot? Before such a serious project, you should first be sure of your capabilities. Building a robot is not the cheapest or easiest thing to do. Think about what kind of robot you want to make, what functions it should perform, perhaps it will be just a decorative robot made from old parts or it will be a fully functional robot with complex, moving mechanisms. I have met many craftsmen who create decorative robots from old, worn-out mechanisms, such as watches, alarm clocks, televisions, irons, bicycles, computers and even cars. These robots are made simply for beauty; they, as a rule, leave very vivid impressions, especially children like them. Teenagers are generally interested in robots as something mysterious, still unknown. Parts of decorative robots are attached in various ways: with glue, welding, and screws. In such an activity there are no unnecessary parts; any details are used, from a small spring to the largest bolt. Robots can be small, tabletop, and some craftsmen manage to make decorative robots of human size. It is much more difficult and no less interesting to make a working robot. The robot doesn’t have to look like a person, it can be a tin can with horns and caterpillars :) here you can use your imagination ad infinitum. Previously, robots were mostly mechanical, all movements were controlled by complex mechanisms. Today, most crude mechanical components can be replaced with electrical circuits, and the “brain” of a robot can be just one microcircuit into which the necessary data is entered through a computer. Today, the Lego company produces special kits for constructing robots, while such construction kits are expensive and not available to everyone. Personally, I’m interested in making a robot with my own hands from scrap materials. The biggest problem encountered in construction is the lack of electrical knowledge. If mechanically you can still do something without problems, then with electrical circuits things are more complicated; it is often necessary to combine several different electrical components, and this is where difficulties begin, but all this can be fixed. When creating a robot, problems may arise with electric motors; good motors are expensive, you have to disassemble old toys, this is not very convenient. Many radio components have also become scarce, more and more equipment is being made on complex microcircuits, and this requires serious knowledge. Despite all the difficulties, many of us continue to create amazing robots for a variety of purposes. Robots can do laundry, clean up dust, draw, move objects, make us laugh, or simply decorate our desktop. I will periodically publish photographs of my new robots on the site, if you are also interested in this topic, then be sure to send your stories with photographs or write about your inventions on the forum. A robot is an independent and often autonomous device that operates according to an internal program. Almost a living creature, only with electronic brains. Robots can do a lot, but still nothing more than what was put into them by their creator. After watching a lot of videos about robots, I decided to try to make a robot myself from a simple toy. What is needed for this? First, the toy itself. (take it away from your child before he breaks it). The toy itself determines what the robot will look like and what it can do. I took a simple remote-controlled tractor King Force 300 (no children were harmed in the making of the robot) Of course, this will not be a human-like robot, but the tractor should still drive independently and still squeak joyfully for any reason or without reason. Video at the end. Those born to ride cannot fly. Those. our robot will move back and forth, left and right. And also jerking the bucket as a bonus. Originally, the King Force 300 also had a plow, but it was driven by the same motor as the bucket and also took up valuable space in the rear where I planned to put an infrared bumper, so the plow had to be brutally amputated. But the screws were used to screw the switch, which is also good. That is, there are only three motors in the machine and we need to control two motors for movement, each of which must rotate forward and backward, and one motor for lifting the bucket, which must rotate only in one direction. Instead of buying an infrared sensor for about 500 rubles, you can solder a couple of transistors and LEDs on a simple breadboard and get the same thing only ten times cheaper, especially if you want to make several sensors. In the end, I bought this motor driver and this ultrasonic rangefinder HC-SR04, and soldered the robot's motherboard and infrared bumper on a simple breadboard just with wiring without using ferric chloride etching, etc. joys. The only thing is that the soldering iron must have a thin tip in order to solder the chip pads. At first I wanted to use a solderless breadboard, but I still decided to solder it so that the wires would fall off less often. The main question remains - about the robot's brains. All these motors need to be controlled somehow. The computer is too big, and it won’t fit into the tractor. Therefore, we take the simplest option possible. One of the Arduino clones. There are many different in price and size. Although this is not the best controller, it is not the fastest and it does not have too many features, it is easy to program, there are many examples of how to do what, there are ready-made libraries for working with a rangefinder and an infrared receiver, so for our task Arduino is quite sufficient. Nutrition. Arduino is powered by +5 volts. Our engines perceive something around 6 volts, to be absolutely precise, we have four AA batteries in the remote control, they are 1.5 volts each, I didn’t see any additional circuits, therefore 6 volts are supplied directly to the engines - this is good because it is not necessary decrease or increase the voltage from the batteries. I plan to power the circuit from four batteries. They are 1.2 volts, so in the end the circuit will use 4.8 - enough to normally power the Arduino without additional stabilizers and limiters, it will also work for motors. For simple control, I connected an infrared radiation receiver; in fact, now the tractor has an infrared remote control and a bunch of buttons. I bought all sorts of combs, battery compartments, capacitors-resistors in a chip-dip. If you order online, the price is generally normal, but retail prices there are absolutely insane. But you can buy almost all the parts in one place. And here I bought a breadboard. After desoldering, the main problem was that the Arduino is very sensitive to interference. Since the motors are clearly brushed, they create strong interference during operation, we had to additionally solder a large number of 0.1 µF capacitors wherever possible. At the same time, the bucket motor greatly influenced the rangefinder; we even had to install an additional filter coil on the bucket motor (soldered out of a burnt-out energy-saving lamp), and on the rangefinder, in addition to the capacitors, put a ferrite filter on the power wire. I initially had the idea of using the rangefinder as a sensor for raising and lowering the bucket. Since the bucket covers the rangefinder in the lower state and opens it in the raised state, it is possible to stop the rise when the rangefinder has sharply changed its readings. Therefore, we had to deal with interference. The rangefinder is too close to the engine, and the wiring helps to point the wires at each other. Wheel motors greatly influenced everything. When starting forward, the Arduino froze. By the way, the ride back was fine. Which is very similar to power supply interference: in one direction the engines had little effect, but in the other direction everything froze. As a result, I had to replace the wires from the motors to the motor driver with shielded ones, and connect the shield to the power supply minus. Make the power supply and ground a star and additionally put a 100 ohm resistor to power the infrared sensor, which also slightly shields interference, of course, not like a coil, but still. Ideally, each motor output should be connected to ground through a capacitor in order to remove interference, but I simply didn’t have room for additional capacitors, they just stand in parallel. But the shielded wire significantly reduced the influence of the motors on the circuit. Below is a diagram of what happened. You can see how it all works in the video.
Conclusion
When choosing a toy for robotization, it is important to clarify how many motors it has on wheels. In some cheap models, both tracks are controlled by one motor, which will not allow the tractor to maneuver, and driving back and forth is not interesting. The Chinese, as always, made a disposable thing, so for normal operation the toy had to work a little, after which it’s no big deal to robotize it. There is confidence that she will not throw off the wheels right away, but will travel a little to the delight of me and the children.
If you need to turn the engine on and off, this can be done simply with a powerful transistor, but if you need to change its polarity, then you can’t do without a special circuit. Either implement the so-called H-bridge yourself, or buy a ready-made motor driver.
Stores of parts for robots are replete with various ready-made boards (shields), which can be purchased and quickly assembled into a single device, but here you need to strike a balance between price and labor intensity of manufacturing such a board.
By the way, twisted pair wires are excellent for wiring such a board. Copper, moderately hard and good for soldering. I think everyone has a meter or two of leftover twisted pair cable for this kind of entertainment. I didn’t take a ready-made motherboard to save space inside the tractor. There won’t be much room in there, so I unsoldered it myself as carelessly as possible. The heartbreaking spectacle of mixed up wires can be seen in the video. As a result, it turned out that the wires also interfere with each other, especially those that go to the engines.
To be able to assemble and disassemble the device, we had to make all the sensors on the connectors.
Arduino Nano is a very compact option to put inside a tractor. I had a clone of Carduino Nano V.7 so I used it, by the way, this board has a feature - an SPK output, where you can connect our bucket directly without any motor drivers and additional transistors. At the same time, it is connected internally through a transistor to the 11th digital port. So look at the diagram, the transistor is drawn on the outside, but in fact the motor is connected to the output of the SPK and uses the internal transistor.
And a few more details.