Hey,
So I have a usb servo controller and I’m putting in an portable animatronic device. I’m probably going to be connecting and reconnecting servos fairly regularly and the device itself will be treated quite roughly.
What I’m thinking about is a good way of mounting the boards.
Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on this issue? I expect I’ll expoxy the board to bit of 1/4 inch balsa wood and then mount that with servo tape… but there has to be a cleaner way 
Dave
That’s a tough one, since the USB servo controller has only the one mounting hole.
In situations like this I’m a big fan of hot glue (hardware store hot glue specifically, I’ve had bad luck with some art store hot glue that wouldn’t stick to molasses!). You can hot glue the bottom of the circuit board to a non-conducting smooth surface and it will be somewhat sturdy, but totally peel-off-able if you ever want to move it.
What’s your animatronic device going to be?
-Adam
I hadn’t thought of hot glue. That is a great idea, better than epoxy.
It’s a “robot” dog for an amateur movie thing I’ve been monkeying with for a couple of years now.
I got fed up with driving it with an rc tx as the performances weren’t easily repeatable.
I’m really fighting the urge to buy an orangutang and make a proper robot at the moment
Thanks.
Dave
Why fight it? The USB servo controller has TTL level serial input too…
I guess it would depend on weather you’re more comfortable with microcontroller or PC programming, or if you want to use a PC to be able to use some sort of commercial animatronics program. Hey, I bet you could get some sort of wireless USB link! Or a wireless serial modem like a ZigBee or an LPRS Easy Radio with TTL level outputs.
Just about any servo control program will work with your controller in MiniSSC-II mode. VSA supports Pololu mode as well, and has a free sample version (that won’t let you save the motions you create in it unfortunately). There’s also a more home-made program called Animaltronicks with similar functionality plus file saving. It’s pretty crash-tastic, but it’s free, and you can get it to work.
Dude! Do you have any videos of the robodog? What’s your movie about?
-Adam
Do you have any videos of the robodog? What’s your movie about?
I’ll show you when its done
In the mean time this might amuse.
Dave
Please do show when it’s done. I love flight of the Conhcords, it’s such a shame that HBO only puts half that song online though, and takes down any other videos that include the other half that ran under the credits. Have you seen the binary solo?
-Adam