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.