Hello, Leicester UK, bit bored an that, new life for old machine!

Collapse
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • LightDiodeDesigns
    Technician
    • Nov 2011
    • 14

    #1

    Hello, Leicester UK, bit bored an that, new life for old machine!

    Hello!!!
    I have had 25 years of having a copier in the house. We are the sort who get something broken cheap and fix it up, PC etc were all built from parts (8086 days). We needed a replacement for an aged copier last year so ended up getting 2 broken old Ricoh's cheap and fixing them up. No good, the main motor drive went after a loose screw accident, but that got us to a 3800c (+everything) or 3 that have been built up and repaired and all working...

    So, when I had something happen recently thats meant a quite while at home recovering, I started looking at PIC stuff again, and all the scrap from the copiers I'd kept, stepper motors, drive PCBs, cogs, wheels, everything really, and I made a robot car really easily.... Initially I was just going to have the stepper through some big transistors and control the PWM with the chip, but then found the boards out of the machine are quite easily tagged into and used them instead! (Perfect PWM control of the stepper current using just 1 pot to control the SLA7023M thats attached to each stepper...

    So here it is! I hope its ok to link to this youtube vid...

    This is, 2 3800's smaller steppers (helical gears too), with 2 wheels attached to 2 helical gears that happen to fit in a shaft that uses the round bit from the clutches, glued onto a CD Case, as the bearing!

    An MCD Demo Board (Pic16f877) is driving this but it could be anything as long as there are 8 outputs..

    Improvements to come, IR Proximity sensors, and possibly ultrasonic too...

    Coolio
    NEAL
  • prntrfxr
    Service Manager

    1,000+ Posts
    • Apr 2008
    • 1627

    #2
    Re: Hello, Leicester UK, bit bored an that, new life for old machine!

    Cool! One of my co-workers made a little car out of fuser gears for his kid's school project. I'm sure there are lots of techs here who have done something similar. Re-post this in the Rants and Raves section under the heading, "What have you ever made from copier parts?" Attach your vid there and watch the other responses to your post. Oh, and by-the-way,...Welcome to CTN!
    Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Coke in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO-HOO, what a ride!".

    Comment

    Working...