So it’s been A LONG time since I wrote here. This will probably not make sense as it’s been ages since I played about with the tank project….
The tank project was fun while it lasted. The final state was:
- Turret rotated – this was done using another stepper driver chip.
- HTML/JavaScript interface kind of worked
- Including touch!
I carted the tank into the office and had it driving around. Pretty cool, especially with the webcam.
But there are/were a number of problems:
- Battery life was dreadful. 15 mins if I was lucky, on a decent 7.2V RC car battery.
- This was down to the high drain of the motors combined with the relatively high drain on the BifferBoard with WLAN gear, etc
- And the crappy 5V regulator didn’t help. It got VERY HOT (burn’ya hot).
- My HTML/JavaScript abilities are not up to the task of doing things nicely.
And, mostly because I’m somewhat bored of “modern software development” the Linux-in-a-tank project is shelved indefinitely. I can’t reommend the bifferboard’s enough, however. With all the attention on the Raspberry Pi, it’s easy to forget these little beauties.