Hey everybody! I was hoping to tap some of the rich juicy knowledge that you might possess..
I'm on my second Arduino project now. The first was a RGB LED controlled by an infrared remote control. Pretty simple stuff, but it served it's purpose! Actually not true. It was far too dim. But still... I'm sure you've all heard enough about first time LED projects! I was thinking of cool stuff to do next. Thing is, whist I'm a pretty good programmer - I picked up syntax for Arduino quickly enough - my electronics knowledge is sadly lacking. I'm trying to work on that, with a couple of books but I'm only a couple of pages in. It's not doing my thirst for instant results any good at all!
So I was wondering if you guys and girls can give me some advice in stringing together the following bits and bobs I've acquired into something cool. Check out the bits of significance I've got my hands on so far:
- An Arduino Duemilanove
...An MD23 motor driver. Tech spec looks like this: http://www.robot-electronics.co.uk/htm/md23tech.htm
...Two of these motor things. They look like they are EMG30s. Link: EMG30 data
I'm also into my remote control cars in a pretty big way, so I've got loads of NiMh battery packs of a couple of different sizes. The one pictured is 2000mAh and I believe around 7 volt.
I've also got a gammy old netbook with a broken screen backlight that can be sacrificed to the cause.
Not a bad haul I think. So what I'm thinking of doing is making a floor roving robot with a netbook mounted on top. The netbook would be running a webcam and webserver over wifi. The webserver would serve up an interface to allow robot movement (button for forward, left, right etc) and would just send control info to the Arduino that would control the motors. I'm hoping this won't be too hard. I'm happy getting the laptop up and running, and coding the web front end. And I'm sure I'll get the code sorted to drive the motors once I'm off to a start. Where I'm having trouble is how to string the hardware together. My electronics knowledge is real weaksauce. I know just about enough to know that I can't just solder the battery to the motor driver. I'm sure something will go pop!
So can one of you kind souls help me out with what to do next? I reckon I can get on a roll once I know how to string all this hardware together! Links to the best things to read, or even more direct help would be massively appreciated!
Cheers!