So You Want to Make a Robot

In this post I will cover the basics of making a robot that will run from your windows based notebook/laptop or tablet.
While you can use a laptop, you might need something smaller.
I will show you the parts required the code needed to make it run and will include a simple application you can make to run your robot from windows.

Parts required.
4-Continious rotation servos or the Devastator Base and two servos.
4-10mm bolts x 4" long and Ten 10mm nuts.
1-Base to mount the servos on and will hold the notebook, laptop or tablet 
2-Servo Y-Cables, not needed if using the Devastator Base.
1-Lipo 3.7v 1000 mAh battery or 3- 1.2v 600mAh batteries.
4-Wheels designed to fit the servos
1-Veyron Servo control board https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1145.html
1-USB to Micro USB cable
Various tools
Microsoft Visual Basic 6

So get you material together and while you are doing that I will start putting together the rest of the post, see you soon!


Using the Devastator Tank Base
Since the Devastator tank base uses two 6v geared dc motors we are going to make some changes.
1) Remove the four screw from the back of your two servos.
2) Remove the top cover of the servo and set it to the side.
3) Remove the gears from the top of the servo .
4) Now unsolder the motor connection from the circuit board and solder two wires in place where the motor was soldered to.
5) Remove the motor from the servo.
6) You should have a single shaft sticking out of the top of the servo, this is the potentiometer.
7) Use a ohm meter and measure the total resistance of the potentiometer and then turn the potentiometer until it reads half of the total resistance. if you do not have a ohm meter you can turn the potentiometer all the way to the left and right and come close to what center is.
8) On the bottom cover make a notch in it to allow the two wires you soldered an area to come out.
9) Assemble the servo back together, leaving out the gears and motor using the four screws.
10) Solder the two wires coming from the servo to the geared motor. 

Using four continuous rotation servos
1) Attach two servos to one side of your base making sure that both servos are pointing in the same direction.
2) Attach two servos to the other side of your base and make sure they are pointing in the same direction as the other two servos.
3) Attach a Y-cable to the two servos on the left side and do the same for the right side.

Mounting the Veyron Servo Control Board 
1) Using a non-conductive material (one that does not conduct electricity) mount the Veyron board to it using four screws. I suggest using plastic or wood as a material to mount the Veyron to.
2) You can place the Veyron inside the Devastator tank base to keep it secure.

Attaching the Servo Wires
I prefer to use channel 0 and 1 for the drive servos, you can use any two channels you like just make sure you take note of which two channels you used and we will need this later during the programming.

So now we have are servos hooked up to the Veyron board and our Veyron board is attached to a non-conductive material.
If you have not already downloaded and installed the Veyron driver this is a good place in the tutorial to do so.
Here is a link to the Veyron driver and its setup instructions:

https://wiki.dfrobot.com/Veyron_Servo_Driver__24-Channel___SKU_DRI0029_

Here are some pictures of what I did to use the Devastator tank base.



We have reached a stopping point for this section of the tutorial.
I will continue putting together the tutorial while you work on your next great robot.
Check back soon for the additional instructions.