Wiring up - Round 1

last night, (as in the date on the photos... I'm re posting this from my back up blog site...) I finally took the time to work on my repstrap again… when I say TOOK the time… look at the time on the photos… all in all I spent 4hours working on the robot.

This is what I did:

1. I placed all the boards on the perspex, and drilled holls for them… making good use of my drill press no photos of that needed.
2. Starting with the arduino and shield, I put :: M3×50 machine screws > washer > PCB > clear tubing > perspex > washer > nut.
   
   
3. Here is the arduino mounted
   
   
4. Here are the 3 stepper driver boards mounted with the arduino showing. This is a view from behind.
   
   
5. Here are all the boards mounted, the two new additions are the PWM driver & the DC motor driver.
   
   
6. And now my wiring nightmares begin… Just take a look at this rats nest! what a mess…
   
   
7. Next I mounted the perspex to the Z axis of the rep strap. The Z axis was taken off to make this a bit easier…
   
   
8. Here is a close up of the clear tubing. Its purpose is to act as a “shock absorber” for bumps and also so that the perspex does not crack if I tighten the screws too tight… which I do… The clear tubing was used to attach all PCB’s
   Because the rats nest is such a mess, I am now going to have to de-solder the IDL headers and hard wire cat 5e cable in its place, this will make it easier to connect to the arduino break away shield and easier to route the wires.