T&L Publications

Greetings –

I am a new member – this is my first post. I am getting the desire to tinker. I am currently building a wooden laptop stand with casters on the bottom. I thought – with a laptop and an extra shelf (for circuitry and power supply or batteries) on the stand I could drive some motors.

I want to start small and baby-step through this – meaning this is now just a laptop stand on rollers.
The circuit and programming side I understand what I have never done and know nothing about is the mechanics related to selecting a dc motor, mounting a motor, the hardware needed to connect a motor shaft ultimately to a wheel.
Can you point to a web page or pages for the mechanics behind the above mechanics or can you lay out the steps and pieces. Granted there are many ways to do the above. I know zero of them. I have seen in Nuts and Volts and through some searching on the smaller “plastic” sized robotic projects. I’m looking at slightly larger sized and “heavier”. The base for my stand is roughly 2’ squared and wooden - the weight is not negligible.
Thanks
Sparky_

You can get cooling fans for relativaly cheap on e-bay, Or you can source parts from Goodwill. I live in INdianapolis and we have a goodwill tha sells by the pound, you just go into a warehouse full of bins and sort through (trash) If you are looking to move the cart, I would suggest cordless screwdrivers. They are easily hacked and contain a planitary gear that gives you about 35lbs of torque using 2 C-cell batteries.
All of above mentioned can be driven/interfaced with a development board
such as
http://store.nutsvolts.com/product.php? ... t=0&page=1

I'm now pictureing a lazyboy chair with a pressure switch and radio control remote. when I sit down a signal is sent making my line-fallowing laptop stand drive its self to my feet.

Do what it what you will, have fun