5IR Line Followe (600Rpm Motor)

5IR Line Follower Devlog — Day 3
Today we made good progress on the mechanical assembly of our 16IR Line Follower Robot .
We permanently mounted the BTS7960 motor drivers onto the chassis and completed the motor connections. We also installed the caster wheel, but ran into an unexpected problem. The caster wheel we had was around 2.25 cm tall, which made the front of the robot sit higher than required. We searched for a smaller caster wheel on Amazon and other platforms but couldn’t find one that matched our requirements.
Instead of waiting for a replacement, we decided to modify the existing caster wheel ourselves. We carefully trimmed the extra material and reduced its height from 2.25 cm to 1.79 cm, which brought the chassis to the desired level and improved the overall balance of the robot.
With the motor drivers mounted, motors connected, and the caster wheel modified and installed, the robot’s hardware assembly is now much closer to completion. The next step is to complete the wiring between the ESP32, the 16IR sensor array, and the motor drivers before moving on to software testing and calibration.
@chinglen2080.

16IR Line Follower Devlog — Day 2
Today we continued working on the electronics setup of the 16IR Line Follower project.
We powered the BTS7960 motor driver and added the buck converter to manage the power supply properly. After that, we soldered the required wires to the ESP32 38-pin board and started preparing the connections for the complete system.
The next steps are to connect the ESP32, BTS7960, and IR sensor array together, attach the motors, and permanently mount the electronics onto the chassis. We are also focusing on keeping the wiring clean and making the overall setup more reliable for testing.
The main electronics layout is now coming together, and the robot is moving closer to the final assembly stage.
@chinglen2080

Today was the first day of building our 16IR Line Follower robot.

Chinglen and I started working on the initial development and planning of the robot. We worked on writing the first motor control code and preparing the hardware setup.

We soldered the connections for the N20 600RPM geared motors and mounted the 16IR sensor array onto the chassis. We also started planning the complete electronics layout — deciding the positions of the battery, BTS7960 motor driver, and ESP32 38-pin board to keep the design compact, balanced, and easier to wire.

The next steps will be completing the wiring, testing sensors and motors, tuning the control system, and improving the robot’s speed and stability.

This project may take around 1 month to complete because we want to properly test and optimize every part of the robot.

Hardware used:

16IR sensor array
ESP32 38-pin board
2 x BTS7960 motor driver
2 xN20 600RPM geared motors
3d PrintedCustom chassis

What do you think will be the biggest challenge: PID tuning or sensor calibration?

@chinglen2080

Edited - Thanks for the support!