Category Archives: 3D printing

I made an ArduRover robot

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I built a robot running the ArduRover firmware. It has a differential drive system with two brushless sensorless drone motors and 3D printed gears. The video above is an overview of the robot and what it can do. The robot is built entirely to out parts I had laying around. The chassis is made out of wood and painted to make it look a bit better.

My intention was to use this robot as a base for adding sensors and other stuff and experiment with some of the features in ArduPilot/ArduRover. I later realized that I can’t do much more since this flight controller only has 1 MB or flash. Maybe I will change the flight controller in the future, or make another rover.

So far the robot has driven a total distance of about 15 km and the 3D printed gears still work well with almost no visible wear. They are printed out of standard PLA plastic.

A new self balancing robot

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I started a new two-wheeled self-balancing robot project. I have built a few balancing robots before. This time, I want to make it even better. Trying out some new things while also making the robot even better documented and easier to replicate.

In this video, I make the chassis using 3D printed parts. The parts were sponsored by JLCPCB who 3D printed them for me. The parts are made out of PA-12 Nylon using MFJ 3D printing process. But those parts can also be printed using any standard filament printer you may have at home.

In later videos, I will make a PCB and show how I code and tune the robot. The robot will be remote-controlled, and also have an autonomous obstacle avoidance mode.

Here is a link to the 3D CAD files (Fustion360 files and STL files for 3D printing): http://brinkeby.se/downloads/2021%20Balancing%20Robot%203D%20CAD%20files.zip

The soft foam tires used are from RC plane wheels. I got them from this Swedish RC hobby shop: https://www.mbs-rcmodels.se/hjul/lattviktshjul-76mm-11g-2-pack/ I don’t think they ship outside of Sweden, or maybe they do. Maybe it is possible to find other tires that fit. I have also included STL files for the tires in the downloads if you want to try and print them out of TPU or similar.

GPS navigation robot – Two waypoints

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This video shows a robot I have built that is driving between two waypoints using GPS.

I built this robot last summer, about a year ago. Back then, I never really managed to the software part of the robot working. The weather became worse outside as the fall came, and a lost interest in this project and started working on other things instead.

I wave written all the code myself, apart from the functions used to calculate course and distance between GPS waypoints. I used functions from the TinyGPS library for that. The code runs on an Arduino Due, the robot is using PID control to steer towards the waypoints. The robot uses a combination of GPS-course and integrating the signal from a yaw-gyro to determine its current course. The robot also has a compass, but it does not seem to work very reliably, therefore I do not use it. The robot also has sonar and other sensors, but they are not used in this video. Expect more videos and info about this robot in the near future.

New robot project

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This is a new long-term robot project I have been working on for the past couple of months. It is a general purpose indoor robot, that will work as a platform for experimentation. When designing this robot, I have tried to think about and improve everything I have learned from previous robot projects I have made. But this robot will also feature some new stuff I have not tried before. Some of the key features if the robot includes:

  • Stepper motor based four-wheel-drive skid-steering drive system
  • Big Li-Ion battery
  • A lot of custom 3D printed parts
  • Heavy duty bumpers, large ground clearance and large foam wheels
  • Raspberry Pi main computer
  • Arduino Due for controlling low-level peripherals
  • Scanning Lidar sensor
  • Probably a Raspberry Pi camera module mounted on a pan/tilt system

So far, only the majority of the mechanical work is done. Here are a few images, click on them to make them larger:

DIY 3D printer detailed overview

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This video is a detailed overview of my DIY coreXY 3D printer. It is just over a year since I built it. Some things have changed since then, but most of the machine it the same. This is my first and only 3D printer, I use a few times a week, sometimes more often than that. The printer works very well, it produces high-quality parts while requiring very little maintenance.

Link to 3D printer page: DIY 3D printer