BEAM Newbie parts/first-time purchase?

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- harry dotman
  
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posted
19 years ago

Tue, Feb 8, 2005 12:59 AM

Comp science student not familiar with electrical engineering. Just read a book on BEAM robotics, and I ordered "Getting started in Electrical Engineering" from radioshack. What parts should I buy to get started in simple robotics (simple circuits to turn motors on/off blink a LED etc etc ...

Looking to work with small robots and robotics.

Is a 15 rangle multimeter ok to start with or do I have to spend more than 20 dollars?

What type of motors/from where should I buy?

If Anyone can give me even a small lead I would be very greatful!!!!!! Thanks in Advance, harrydotman.

- J
- jwgoerlich
  
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posted
19 years ago

Tue, Feb 8, 2005 4:31 PM

A breadboard is a must, the larger the better. Get a few different ICs. Standard BEAM fare includes 74AC/HC240 (Inverters), 74AC/HC14 (Schmitt Inverters), 74HC86 (XOR), 74HC4066 (switch), and L293D (motor driver). Buy a handful of LEDs. Get some capacitors, ranging from 0.001uF to

10uF. Pickup an assortment of resistors. For LEDs and other circuits, you'll need 1K to 100K. Nervous Nets and BEAM circuits typically require 1M to 10M resistors.

It should be fine for starters. There was an extensive thread about multimeters for BEAM a while back. You can find it here:

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I prefer Solarbotics

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motors for BEAM. They are inexpensive, easy to mount and work with.

Hope that helps,

J Wolfgang Goerlich

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- Ben Bradley
  
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posted
19 years ago

Tue, Feb 8, 2005 5:15 PM

I'd suggest some of the Forrest Mims books that Radio Shack has or used to have. A quick look on bookfinder.com shows some of them are available new - check out the descriptions and reviews of his books on amazon.com.

That should be fine to start with, you can even get one cheaper at places such as . Look at this, "only $4.99:"

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It's fun to take apart an old CD player/CDROM drive, each one has three different motors. I've got some of the tiny "pager motors" but I've found the torque to be really low, and you have to be careful getting the weight off the shaft without breaking it. I got pager motors from

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and found instructions for removing the weights on the

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forums, where there appears to be (have been) a bit of BEAM discussion as well.

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