hi to all hardware builders:
for the development of an home-brewed 8x motor multiplexer (multiplexor?) for the nxt encoder motors:
what sort of hardware base should one choose?
H-Bridges, Schmitt-Triggers, ICs ...?

You will need a dual H bridge circuit for each motor and a uController to control the motors and deal with the incoming tacho signals. I don't think it'll be trivial, tbh. I've got an ATmega168 chatting with my NXT as a slave, that would probably be the easiest part I don't think the ATmega168 would be suitable for this, it has too few pins. Bigger cousins are available, of course.

Your uC will need to generate 8 PWM signals, not sure what frequency, should be easy to look up what the NXT FW uses. Most uControllers have hardware that can do 2, 3 or 4, few can do as many as 8. You'll have to do it through software, which is a bit more work.

You'll need a fairly high speed processor, most ATmega's have no problems running at 16MHz. You can't afford to miss an incoming signal from your tachos, so fast signal handlers needs to be made.

You could probably use PICs, too. In fact, I'd be surprised if you couldn't. However, I have no experience with those.

Regards,
Xander

ok, this seems to be too big for tinkers and handymen.
maybe we let it do any a manufacturer like Hitechnic some day...

No, no, not too big, just a lot of work. I didn't say it was impossible!

ok, what ATMEL would you suggest? Maybe sort of this:

http://www1.conrad.de/


C-CONTROL PRO EINSTEIGERSET MEGA 128
Artikel-Nr.: 198484 - LN

MYAVR BOARD MK3/256MB AVR EVALUATION BOARD
Artikel-Nr.: 191255 - LN

who wants to try some circuits on some breadboards?
maybe we find some way for a soldered / printed board later, maybe already pre-manufactured just to put in the electronics...?

Helmut,

The link you pasted does not work. The Conrad website is one of the worst in the world. None of the links you paste from it will ever work. Just give me the article number so I can look it up myself.

I am not sure what ATMEL would be good. It would take some research However, I think making a 4 motor prototype would be better and much simpler to start off with. You could always make the 4 motor one loop-through-able, like I did with the MightyBoard and allow an address to be configurable.

Regards,
Xander

strange...
I changed it, see above...!

The MyAVR boards are nice, but a little pricey. I own a small one (for the ATmega8/88/168), I got it for starting off with. I am not too keen on the C-CONTROL PRO EINSTEIGERSET MEGA 128, the boards have way too much crud on them and pricey as well. I am not sure you can program this one with GCC, the defacto standard for programming AVRs in C (unless you have ICC). It seems to ship with a compiler called CompactC which I had never heard of before.

A guy in my robotics club showed me this little module: [LINK]. It's a very powerful module and is also available with additional RAM. That shop has a few different ones available, depending on what your needs are. The great thing about these modules is that you can use them when you're prototyping on your breadboard and you can fit them on your final board when you're done designing and testing. They're also easy to replace if you blow one up

Programming this will not be for the feint of heart.

Regards,
Xander

well, about the needs I don't know anything beyond that it should control 8 encoder motors :?
I'm neither a solderer nor a hardware programmer, as you may know ;)
I'm just gathering ideas, maybe someone reads it and takes the challenge 8)

PS:
I'm curious why a nxt motor mux is so complicated to build:
e.g., an 8x servo mux seems to have a far easier disign:
http://www.mindsensors.com/index.php?mo ... PAGE_id=93

You only need to pulse a servo between every 20ms for about 0.5-2.0 ms or so. There is no position feedback, your pulse length dictates position.

With a motor mux you need to deal with 16 pins to deal with the tachos alone (2 per motor). Then you need to generate 8x1000-2000Hz PWM signals, maybe even higher, depends on the motor.

Servos are easy peasy.

Regards,
Xander