[subzero15]

Thanks for all the help,

here is an e-mail I sent to an electrical engeineering friend of mine... maybe it willl give you a better idea of what I am trying to do. I am up to any suggestions.


For my class robotics project I am building an automated workcell. My design is to analyze and catalog different colored boxes.

This is how the system will work:
first the colored box enters the system, it lands on a conveyor belt.
That conveyor belt drops the box off at a staging area.
once on the staging area, I will use a Light-to-Frequency Sensor like this to identify what color the box is.
Next, an arm will pick up the box and place the box on the next conveyor
This conveyor will take the box and drop it off in a reptacle for its respective colored box.
I have attatched a picture of the CAD drawing of the project. I have updated the drawing but the princible is still the same.

I will be powering the conveyor belts and the arm with continuoous rotation servos like these.
I will be tracking the positioning of the arm with optical incremental encoders like these
I will be using a limit switch for other things like detecting if there is a box on the staging area.

So my problem is that I am having a hard time finding a microprocessor with enough inputs and/or outputs.

right now i have:
9 continuous rotation servos (1 digital input each)
1 limit switch (1 digital input)
2 optical incremental encoders (2 analog inputs, i think)
1 TCS230 light-to-frequency converter (6 digital inputs)
2 Leds (2 digital outputs)

Some of the microprocessors that I have looked at were basic stamp, sx, and IFI robotics' microchip Robot Conctrollers(here and here)

I wanted to use a SX controller but I don't think they have Analog I/O's, I thought about adding more limit switches to replace the encoders. I like these chips because then I could make my own circuit board later on...

I think I could use IFI's microchip robot controllers. Would be hard to get the TCS230 light-to-frequency converter to work with this?
Do you know of any other microcontrollers that I could use? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks,
Nick DiCola

please ignore the mechanical faults of the design... I am still learning Inventor.