<br>For really, really small robots (??nanomouse??) there are very small stepper motors used for driving the needles (speedo, RPM, etc) in electronic car dashboards and similar. The ones I'veworked with were low-enough current that they could be driven directly from microcontroller pins without extra driver circuitry.<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 7:42 AM, Richard Jones <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rjtp@ihug.co.nz">rjtp@ihug.co.nz</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Doh,<br>
<br>
I missed the opto components in 3.5" floppies. Thanks Andrew.<br>
<br>
One advantage of the Trademe components is the availability of data sheets<br>
and consistency of performance. For my wall sensors I need six reasonably<br>
matched emitter and detector pairs as I'm doing maths with the results. The<br>
data sheets tell me I can pulse the LEDs with 10A for 1us or 3A for 10us<br>
from memory. Not sure I would do that to an unknown component and expect it<br>
to survive!<br>
<br>
I also have a single 5.25" floppy drive waiting to have the stepper motor<br>
taken out. A stepper micromouse design is planned as a followup to the<br>
optical and sonar brush motor mice that I have at the moment.I think the<br>
parallax propeller will make an excellent stepper mouse controller.<br>
Dedicating a cog to each sonar and stepper motor channel still leaves 3 for<br>
other activities.<br>
<br>
Morris is all fired up on printer parts. Any other devices we should be<br>
looking out for? I know photocopiers look interesting but I've not found<br>
one to take apart yet.<br>
<br>
How is life in Korea?<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Richard<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:28:05 +0900 (KST), "Andrew Errington"<br>
<<a href="mailto:a.errington@lancaster.ac.uk">a.errington@lancaster.ac.uk</a>> wrote:<br>
> On Thu, June 18, 2009 17:55, Richard Jones wrote:<br>
>> I'm using optical sensors on my micromouse for wall detectors and<br>
>> rotation sensors, hence my interest in these. The cheapest infra red<br>
> LEDs<br>
>> and photo diodes come from scrap mice. However if your supply of dead<br>
> mice<br>
>> is running out there are some components on Trademe that may be of<br>
>> interest:<br>
><br>
> Don't forget, scrap mice show up at the SuperShed regularly, and you can<br>
> get tiny slotted opto switches from 3.5" floppy drives (track 0 sensor).<br>
><br>
> Actually, mechanical mice and 3.5" drives are surely fast disappearing.<br>
> Better stock up now.<br>
><br>
> Andrew<br>
><br>
><br>
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