This article was submited by morgoth and is part of the PCB giveaway program, so for submitting he’s work morgoth will receive a free PCB. Also in the future we’ll see more of he’s projects.
Of-course there are other projects based on this idea around the web, but what makes this one special, it’s he’s features. There are 3 stepper motors controlled by a single ATmega8 that runs at 8 MHz, and a motor driver for each motor. The motors and their drivers were recovered from an old printer.
Although the motors are controlled by the same microcontroller each one can move independent. The board can receive commands to drive the motors trough serial interface from a computer. There is also a PC software that enables you to send commands from a nice graphical interface.
As you can see this is a very practical application, for example it can be easily developed into a CNC machine. I personally like morgoth’s coding skils and i think he has some more great projects to show.
And in the ending here is a movie with the motors in action.
The project starts with a commercial remote controlled car that has to be modified so that it can be interfaced with the Phidget controller. The easiest way to accomplish this is to modify the hand-held controlling unit to receive input from the Phidget controller instead of a human driver.
The end result is a .NET-controlled RC car with wireless camera for stealthy operations.
.NET controlled RC car with wireless camera:[Link]
You’ve probably seen the article about the Asus Eee PC and what can be integrated inside it’s case. But after you’ve done some modding and added different devices your battery probably doesn’t last as it was intended to last, so if you need to charge it in the car you either buy a commercial adapter or you make it.
This projects shows details on how to build an Eee Pc car charger. There are actually a small number of parts so the whole cost should be small.
The xu1541 is the modern way to connect CBM IEC bus devices to todays USB equipped PCs and it is meant to replace the printer port solutions based on the so-called original x1541 cable. The xu1541 interface allows you e.g. to attach a VIC1541 disk drive to your desktop PC as depicted below. This allows for easy transfer of disk images from and to the old units and helps you preserve your ancient data.
