About a year ago I attempted to make a homebuilt segway for my HS senior project, because after seeing the Craigway, Knight Krawler, and Trevor Blackwell's homebuilt, I was convinced a well functioning balancing vehicle could be made for well under half the cost of buying a Segway. Well, let me just say that when my project was complete, it became very apparant as to why the real Segway costs so much.
So,
here's what I've got Check out the pictures and video. The video was using code that read tilt as either forward or backward and drove the motors at a constant speed in the direction it was tilting, no matter how much it was tilting. (I know this isn't a good program, but I am no programmer)
And here are the specs:
Large 24V right angle wheelchair motors approx 113 rpm free speed
16" diameter tires direct drive from motors (spprox 0.5-1.5 degrees backlash in setup)
RoboWars IBC Speed Control
Parallax Basic Stamp 2 on a Board of Education
Memsic 2125 Accelerometer
Four 12V 10Ah SLA batteries in a series parallel configuration
28" wide hub to hub and approx 80lbs weight.
Approx 5.5" from groung to bottom of riding platform.
My question is, given the right program, is this setup capable of balance like a segway? (not necessarily extremely smooth like the real Segway but smooth enough to be rideable) If yes, then what is the right program?
If no what needs to be changed? I need to know the following things. Given a good program and proper other factors:
Is the motor-wheel-platform setup capable of balancing the vehicle?
Is the accelerometer capable of balancing the vehicle?
Is the Parallax BS2 capable (fast enough) of sampling the gyro/accelerometer/whatever and generating the PWM signals for the speed controllers?
Is the Robowars IBC capable of enough frequency or whatever to accurately control the motors based on the pwm signals it receives from the microcontroller?
And if the answer to any of these questions is "no" (which I'm sure it will be on at least one of them), what hardware do I need to make this thing balance.
I'm not expecting this to be as fast or as smooth as a segway. I just want to be able to ride it safely and maybe let you all give it a try at an event next year. I just want it to be useable.
I want to spend as little as possible on making this work, but I know that some cost probably will be involved in making it work and I can prepare for that within reason. I don't really want to scrap the project for making something else because it was my HS senior project which I will probably remember forever.
Any help is greatly appreciated as always.
