General Design Notes



Car Body:
  • Servo Specifications
    • The servos only accept 5V.  They DO NOT accept anything HIGHER than 5V.
    • If you have the black servo: +5V attaches to the red wire, 0V attaches to the black wire, 0-5V PWM signal attaches to the white wire.
    • If you have the red Multiplex servo: +5V attaches to the red wire, 0V attaches to the brown wire, 0-5V PWM signal attaches to the orange wire.
    • The pulse width should vary from about 1ms to 2ms and the period is around 10ms to 15ms.
  • Motor Specifications
    • RC motors generally work off of 7.2V ni-cad batteries.
    • When stalled, they can draw more than 20A.
Siemans CPU Board:

General Software:

  • Learn how to use the interrupts and all the useful peripheral hardware in the Siemens CPU.  In general, control code should be time triggered.  
EMF Proximity Detector: Optical Detector:
  • We have an excellent optical detection solution using a Hamamatsu IC and a photo diode. 
  • Possible applications:  Speed/distance detector, crossing detector, line detector.  

Organization:

  • We have ribbon cable and connectors in order to prevent your cars from looking like this...  This car may have won 2nd place in 1999, but it looks ugly and is a mess to work with.  Hopefully it will be easier to organize the cars by using ribbon cable.