The Western Canadian Robot Games are fast approaching, so we're going to help spur on building by reducing the prices of our batteries by half! Get building - you only have less than 2 months to finish!
You want a simple Photovore? This very tidy design by Solarbotics' own Grant McKee is based on a technique developed by Mark Tilden - Shok architecture:
Here's video of the test robots being tuned as a 177kB Windows Media Format (WMV) file or as a 168kB RealMedia (RM) file.
ShokPopper V1.0 (click for circuit diagram) - GrantM Aug 2001
Theory of operation:
"Shok" architecture is a technique pioneered by Mark Tilden describing controlled state changes of Bicore style circuits via chip power or enable toggling. When a Bicore circuit is powered on, it will resume a state opposite to what it was when it was powered off, this effect can either be duplicated by pulsing the enable line or by pulsing power to the chip itself. This is called "shoking" the Bicore. The power-on state can also be pre-determined by biasing the voltage across the Bicore capacitors. A photodiode attached directly across the Bicore charge capacitor will pre-bias the shoked output. The addition of tactile sensors is easily implemented by attaching a switch from the input of the Bicore to +Vdd. When the switch is closed, it forces that side high, presetting the state of the Bicore on the next pulse cycle.
Probably one of the simplest photovore circuits to date, the core circuit consists of a 6 part count and a solar-engine. Either 74AC240 or 74HCT240 will work but we recommend using the AC series for better output drive current. The ShokPopper will not work under battery power unless the enable line is pulsed.
Solar Engine to use with Shok:
The best solar-engine to use is the Miller engine. For the ShokPopper Photovore we used a Miller engine consisting of:
The Bicore Circuit Consists of:
The Miller engine switches the ground line of the circuit.
The theory of operating is very similar to that of the shok popper except that the head now only uses one motor, the photo head does not "lock" on but will continually seek for the brightest source of light. Nice effect if you want a continually seeking, dynamic device on a stationary base.
The Western Canadian Robot Games are fast approaching, so we're going to help spur on building by reducing the prices of our batteries by half! Get building - you only have less than 2 months to finish!
Yup, it's that time of the year in Calgary, pahdnah (no, that's not an East Indian name - it's cowboy for friend). The Calgary Stampede is upon us, and we're expecting to give our staff a wee bit of leeway to enjoy themselves a bit. It shouldn't affect your service, but don't be surprised if […]
Tom from our Facebook page recently showed us his latest project, the Pingbot. In Tom's words, it's "a very small (38mm diameter), usb rechargeable, programmable, musical, remote control robot designed for maximum fun and danceability." We don't know about you, but danceability should be a priority on every robot's feature list. Check out some video […]
After a long hiatus, our PP3 chisel-tip pogo pins are back! And it looks like they're here to stay, so no more drop-outs in supply. I know that we use them for robotics applications, but there's a lot of people using them for other electronics purposes. Now you can get them reliably, and in quantity, […]
Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.
Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.