Category Archives: Hardware

Determine STM32 reset source

When your STM32 processor starts up from a reset, there are a number of possible sources for that reset. You may want to perform different initialisations depending on the exact source of the reset.

Posted in Hardware, STM32 | 4 Comments

Decimus 4 progress – minus a little smoke

It didn’t take long to get the first Decimus 4 board on the bench for a build. This first one will serve as a static testbed for code development and sensor testing. After verifying that the power supplies were good, … Continue reading

Posted in Hardware, Micromouse | 4 Comments

Searching for the perfect screw

Here in the UK, we use metric fasteners. When you go shopping for small screws though, the only sizes you can generally get below M3 are old, awkward imperial sizes. Even if you are happy with M3, the variety of … Continue reading

Posted in Hardware | 3 Comments

Pinion interfering with the tire

When I applied power to the motors on Zeetah VI (ZVI) for the first time, the motors seemed to struggle and the PWM value to get the wheels to rotate seemed higher than usual. Since this was my first four … Continue reading

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Comparing the ADXRS610 and ADXRS642 gyros

Analog Devices recently release new vibration rejection gyros which seemed a perfect fit for use on a micromouse. Since I was using the ADXRS610 on Zeetah V, I temporarily mounted an ADXRS642 to ZV to compare the two.

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Soldering the gyro

Finally, a way to solder the Analog Devices ADXRS610 gyro… The last time we attached a gyro, we overheated the board and the board delaminated. This time, we use a skillet and avoided that problem.    

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Painting the floor

Once the panels dried out, it was time to paint them.

Posted in Hardware, Japan | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Making the floor

Now that I had the layout, the next step was to cut and drill the plywood. While there are many techniques for doing this, I ended up getting help from a friend who has access to water jet cutters to … Continue reading

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Designing a maze floor

Given standard sizes for plywood, here is a pattern I used to make a maze floor.

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How many walls do you need for a square maze?

At the Japanese contest, Peter said there is a closed form solution for the maximum number of walls a legal micromouse maze can have.

Posted in Hardware, Micromouse | Tagged , , | 4 Comments