gameboy robot controller

These guys have a new robot controller that I'm thinking on getting. It looks like it has some sophisticated motor control www.charmedlabs.com
The idea of a gameboy robot is cool. Apparently you can play wav files through it as the video clips demonstrate.
Andy

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sophisticated ? 4 hbridges with closed loop control. Just means a closed loop feedback system. In this case you get more procise control.
It looks like a nice kit. The xrc I suspect adds another processor , most likely another arm7 chip
also have a look at the gamepark32 http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/GamePark32 similar size but more powerful cpu than the gameboy advanced
You can find the compiler and cables to allow you to write programs and program your gameboy / gba without needing the fpga addon.see http://www.charmedlabs.com/links.htm http://www.jharbour.com/gameboy/index.html http://www.gameboy-advance.net /
The charmlabs addon , xport, has an fpga as well So you would want to learn either vhdl or verilog to be able to write a program for the fpga.
You can use the schematic tool that comes with the xilinx webpack but it gets annoying and painfull for larger designs. also limits you a lot compared to using a hdl (hardware drescription language).
You can download the xilinx webpack for free after registering(also free). www.xilinx.com/webpack also get modelsim . not a small download.
If you added an output board with optocouplers and other more powerful drive stage you could use this to control much larger robots.
Use the bluetooth and another gb or gba and control from up to 100m.
Alex Gibson

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This "back-EMF" business sounds sophisticated to me. But then again I've only recently started to look around again. I'm not sure how they can measure the motor position using the same wires that power the motor though.
I've played with some industrial controllers awhile back and know that feedback control is a good thing. If you can wrap a PID loop around these motors (which is what they claim) it starts getting interesting IMHO.
Andy

burrito snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (amason) wrote:
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Some motors come with a "tachometer" which basically means generator. It will output a pseudo-sine wave which you can square up and then count using your MCU's pulse accumulator to roughly determing RPMs.