HUGE PROGRESS

This session was spent, designing and assembling the electronics enclosure for the hand, and getting the full working demo. to be compact.

When the hand turns I noticed that servo cables would turn with the hand, which made accessing certain wrist positions risky, due to the nature of the wrist design. Thus I needed some way of reduceing the number of wires connecting to the hand, such that it can be more mobile. To do this, I decided to mount the pwm driver and power source directly onto the back, which I designed a bracket for.

Because the hand is shaped so oddly, it took me several iterations to find a mount that would screw readily, and the pcbs, the way I inteded. And while, I would send these designs to print, I worked on the electronics. I put tested the complete human to model to hand pathway, and I realized the whining sound and stunt earlier was likely a result of my battery supply. Thus, I switched out the battery for a wall dc-dc power supply, and was able to sustain the hand without a crash. At it’s peak the servos only drew about 1.2A at 12V, so perhaps the issue wasn’t the battery’s current capability, but instead how quickly it could provide it.

While I printed these iterations, I noticed how the elctronics on the breadboard were functional but fragile, so I decided to take on the UNNECESSARY decision to turn my electronics into a perfboard. Worst mistake ever. Who knew a perfboard could be so troublesome. Almost every 5 minutes, I’d either bridged a connection, soldered ground to voltage, layed out components in the wrong order, or just burnt myself. Even worse, I was laying on the dirty floor, and my shaky hands and burning elbows have left me more sore, than I’ve ever felt.

After some 4 hours recorded, and 3 hours off camera, I got perfboard wired up. Because, I’m almost at 10 hours, however, I’ll share whether it worked in the next log.