Hi,
We are using the Zumo for a robotics competition and are running into some questions were are hoping to get help with. First, we are wondering if it is possible to use the Zumo Chassis with an Arduino, without using the shield, because we are trying to stay under budget. If that is not a great option and we do purchase the shield, we need to access to 6 pins on the arduino to power additional motors on a 3 axis arm that will be mounted on the zumo. From what we understand, the zumo shield connects to all the pins on the arduino, but does not use them all so we could solder connection to the back of the arduino and route the power that way. Can anyone confirm that either of these theories would work, and if so, how we could solder the additional motors to run off the arduino.
For context below is the 6 axis arm and are using a Leonardo Arduino.
if you want to supply your own control electronics, you can use the Zumo Chassis Kit and a couple of Micro Metal Gearmotors. You can find some suggestions for specific gearmotors on the Zumo Chassis Kit product page. Please note that along with a microcontroller like an Arduino, you will also need a way to drive the motors, such as some brushed DC motor drivers. You can find recommendations for specific motor drivers on the Micro Metal Gearmotor product pages.
If you use the Zumo Shield, you can find information about the function/availability of each pin in the Arduino pin assignment table section of the Zumo Shield user’s guide. Duplicates of each Arduino pin are available along each side of the shield, and a number of free pins are available on the front expansion header as detailed in the Front expansion section of the guide. (Please note that if you are using the Zumo line sensor array, some of those pins will be taken)
It is not entirely clear to me what you are asking with your last question about “soldering the additional motors to run off the Arduino” (or why you think you need 6 pins), but it looks like that arm just uses servos, so I suspect you can just use the standard Arduino Servo library. However, please note that if you are using the Zumo Shield with our Arduino library there will be a conflict with Servo.h since they both rely on Timer 1. You can find details about a workaround to this conflict in the “Controlling a servo” section of the Zumo Shield user’s guide.
