Pololu Zumo Based Rover Build

Here is the finished bot:

Arduino Mega mounted vertically on a slab of scrap wood

I got the first Zumo based robot built and running this evening.  For some reason, I decided to mount the arduino and h-bridge vertically on a slab of wood, then mounted the wood to the chassis.  This wasn't hard.  I had the most trouble with re-soldering the wire leads to the motors and I may have damaged one of the motors in the process.

Once I got the bot mostly working, I loaded the rover bot code.  I had no trouble getting the code to run on the arduino mega (clone).  

In general, the Zumo track driven chassis and motors show promise in getting a small bot over wood floors and rugs.  I hope to swap out the motors soon, then focus on programming the bot.  I also need to mount the radio, wheel encoders, and compass.  And, it needs lights, lots of blinking lights.

More about the build here

arduino on left, h-bridge on right -- mounted on a scrap of wood

 

h-bridge mounted with thick 2 sided tape

4x AA batteries below the bot

 

can't wait to race

Random Notes:

• I attached a chunk of scrap wood vertically to the Zumo chassis
• I used double-sided tape to mount the arduino, range finder, and h-bridge to the wood 
• Pololu 100:1 metal gear motors
• tiny
• 1 of 2 motors not working well, the gears drag and make buzzing noise
•  robot pulls hard left
• I had trouble with intermittent noise and drag with the left Pololu 100:1 metal gear motor
• I'm guessing this is a mechanical problem with the gears.
• I had to replace the wires that I originally soldered to the motors
• de-soldering was difficult. yuck
• may have damaged motor?
• The new thicker wires are good, but block the battery door
• batteries have dropped out when the bot goes over bumps
• I will try swapping out the 100:1 motors with 50:1 ones that I have
• 
  
• Voltage issue (may be related to left motor)?
• seems like the bot doesn't get consistent power.  
• The sticky motor may drag the voltage down.
• it seems like there is some kind of voltage problem, 
• perhaps loose wires
• shaking wires around h-bridge seemed to match changes in motor performance
• bot worked well when plugged into usb or with the 9v battery (later mounted on top)