PSU Direct.

[DirtyRoboto]

I have just been running Takashi from a 6v 1A PSU for the last 2 hours and apart from some warm servos I had no bad effects.
I just disconnected the batteries and bought the PSU into the battery socket.

I needed Takeshi active for a long time while I programmed an advanced Yes/No routine in. Over 400 entries in the bias table.
I then let him run for an hour including 3 updates to the table. I ended up with a very cool set of actions. Although, as soon as the power went so did the actions.

I would not recommend messing with your bots power unless you know what you are doing. You could fry the board $$ ££ :0

[gdubb2]

WOW..2 hours.. thats great.

I tried using a 1.5 A power supply with a tether, and it would shut down as soon as I tried to move much at all. I have some 15A power supplies that are very stable, so I was just using a linear regulator to get down to 6VDC. I switched to a 5A linear reg. and things are good again. I have a battery monitor mounted and watch it very closely.

The tether idea sure saves on the aggravation of changing batteries often.

Keep up the good work.
Gary

[Humanoido]

I've been working on the tether idea too, and
can say it's been a slow progressing of changing
to power supplies, with thicker cables, that can
handle more amperage. I'll bet it's phenomenal to
see the total draw with an ammeter. I had never
realized what that tiny power pack of batteries
is delivering until then.

humanoido

[DirtyRoboto]

I was'nt getting any trouble with my PSU but I have put some massive capacitors in it from when I was using it as a high tension emitter.

[Humanoido]

I was getting spikes to the CPU from an earlier robot that used pm motors. I solved the problem with a power line custom anti-spike circuit using low power metal oxide varistors, coils and two large electrolytic capacitors. It seems logical that RN would need some good filtering as well, considering all the noise generated from so many servos. Has anyone checked out the powerline spike situation with a good oscilloscope when RN is in action?

humanoido

[DirtyRoboto]

My original thinking was that logic dictates that if I could reproduce the power from the batteries using a PSU, the RN1 would not know this.

I set about with thinking that Caps are batteries, and if I put enough of them into the circuit then I could reproduce what the batteries do.
I then remembered my old HT PSU that has a large Cap matrix and gave that a whizz. It worked first time. I do admit being scared that I might fry the board, but went ahead anyway.

[Humanoido]

Plus you ended up with some good filtering too!
I was at the parts store again, looking for a
higher capacity power supply and studying
the merits of analog versus switching.

humanoido

[toast]

Gys, guys,guys, you are missing a very important point. RN is esentially an RC model with no clothes on. Why not just use an SBEC plugged straight into the board instead of the battery? Both Hyperion and Interlect make SBEC's that will operate at a stable and clean 5 or 6 volts. The Hyperion one is a cold running BEC and the Interlect one only gets slightly warm. Both will accept up to around 35v dc so you can plug it into either a 12v gell cell or a 12v power supply the boogie till your hearts content.

http://rcb.shopnz.biz/catalog/product_i ... df90403d63

Itz wot i done wiv mi Rowbownovahhh...!