infocast

2 Articles

Dustbin Computer Lets You Clean And Prototype With A Neato XV-11

August 30, 2011 by 8 Comments

So you bought yourself a Neato XV-11 and your floors have never been cleaner. The only problem is that you want to hack around with the hardware without losing your floor-sweeping minion. [Hash] found a solution to the issue by building a computer inside of the dustbin module.

You can see at the center of the image above a touchscreen. Normally this is just blank plastic, as it’s the removable container where your floor sweepings go, but [Hash] was inspired by the modular design. Since that bin is intended to be removable, it’s a perfect way to make add-on hardware removable. All he needed to do was find a way to connect to the Neato’s own electronics. The solution was a non-standard USB cable.

Using the guts from an Insignia Infocast 3.5 (he picked several of them up on clearance at Christmas) he  milled an opening for the touch screen, added a cooling fan, and wired up a toggle switch (not pictured above) which powers everything from the 14-17V coming in from that USB cable. The Infocast is a Chumby with a different branding so there’s plenty of Linux-based power and it’s WiFi enabled. Watch [Hash’s] walk through video after the break to see all that went into this clever concept.

We haven’t seen too many hacks that make use of the Neato XV-11. [Hash] is the same guy who hacked the Lidar on the unit, but there must be others turning out impressive projects. Don’t hesitate to send in a tip if you know of one.

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Chumby Controlled Mechanum Wheel Robot

August 29, 2011 by 20 Comments

[Madox] gutted an Insignia Infocast to use with this robot. Insignia is Best Buy’s house brand and they partnered with Chumby to make their Infocast line. If you can find a used or clearance model it’s a great way to get yourself and embedded Linux board for a project like this one.

The body and wheels are 3D printed, with design files available at [Madox’s] Thingiverse page. The mechanum wheels work amazingly well, using seven bearings each for smooth operation. The body itself includes a holder for two groups of batteries. One of those battery packs powers the Chumby board while the other is used to power the four servo motors responsible for locomotion. To simplify the electronics [Madox] chose to use a USB servo drive which only set him back about $20.

We’re not sure what the USB dongle on top of the robot is used for. We’d guess it’s a WiFi adapter, since the machine sets up its own access point to act as a controller. But we thought Chumby boards had WiFi built-in. At any rate, check out the video after the break where you can see an Android phone driving the little bugger. There’s a flaw in the code that prevents side-to-side movement, it gets fixed after a video break at about 2:15 and everything is peachy after that.

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