If your BEAMbot doesn’t make you beam, carefully examine all connections, resolder anything that looks weak, and separate any components that might be touching (shorting). It’s a simple circuit, so not much can go wrong besides incorrect connections or bad joins.
FURTHER HACKING IDEAS On the Trimet, add an outer paper-clip ring. This creates a bumper that will help prevent the robot from getting stuck.
On the Solarroller, replace the regular 4700µF capacitor with a “supercap” like a 0.33F Gold Capacitor, as shown in the project photos. These capacitors can take several minutes to juice up, but they’ll make your Solarroller take off like a bat outta hell.
You can easily convert an old Sony Walkman into a great Solarroller. Leave the motor, roller wheels, and pulleys in the original frame’s base piece, and use it as the vehicle’s chassis.
Try Andrew Miller’s more efficient variant of the basic Solarengine, which is almost as easy to build. You need a different resistor, an additional capacitor, and a diode, but you can lose the 3906 transistor. Varying the value of the small cap, between 0.47µF and 47µF, lets you “program” different discharge times. (See schematic at: makezine.com/06/ beambots.)
RESOURCES
Once you have the basic ideas down, you can go There are many more hacks and variations on crazy, improvising BEAMbots with greater storage these two project types, as well as other applica-capacity, better obstacle-avoidance strategies, or tions for the Solarengine. For more information, swankier, more attention-getting designs. Here are see “Getting Started in BEAM” on page 57. some Symet and Solarroller variations (pictured Schematic for Miller variant of Solarengine at right). circuit: makezine.com/06/beambots
References:
http://makezine.com/06/beambots
Archives