I finally have enough printed stuff to mock up the Rocker-Bogie Suspension. I am using 5/16″ wooden dowels as temporary connections until I get it right. I don’t want to waste the 8mm carbon fiber tubes with the wrong cuts. Even though the 8mm carbon fiber is not that much, it takes a long time to get here from China.
The measurements for each wooden dowel are in the photo. A Raspberry PI Zero W for scale.
I also need to start figuring out the programming of the Arduino to run the steering and motors. I have decided to have the Raspberry Pi Zero W be the central compute hub, then split functions for propulsion, imaging, and communications. I will also use some relays (mechanical or solid-state) to control the power of each system. That way, I can completely shut a system down to save power. I am still thinking about this.
What I learned:
I may need to provide more clearance for the steering. I don’t plan on rotating the wheels the other way, but you never know once I get the thing out there and stuck once. Crap, I may need to build two of these things, one the be out there and the other to put in the “Sandbox” I guess this is why I am testing printing in Pink.