[Dprglist] Fwd: Pioneer 3 AT Robotics Platform

[Karim Virani]

The version of this that has the manual as an attachment is held up in
moderation, so:


Due to the height of competition season for my high school teams, I haven't
really had time for more than a cursory look at the PATs. Hopefully I can
report out a bit more this evening after we've had a couple of
co-conspirators over to take a look. Preliminary review shows:

   - The lids are off of some of the robots, but they each have one.
   - I did NOT notice any obvious signs of water damage. No sign of extreme
   exposure to the elements. All chassis have signs of collision, but the
   structure seems solid and aligned on all of them.
   - There are two 8 element sonar arrays on each robot
   - As expected, none of the arrays are undamaged. A couple of them have
   mangled housings, some are missing a sensor or two, many of the sensors
   look damaged. I would guess at least 8 sensors are recoverable/usable per
   robot and that if somebody in the group-buy ends up with less than that,
   others more fortunate should be willing to contribute one or two. Hopefully
   David can tell us if they are replaceable with modern versions of the
   sensors.
   - Each array has its own local driver board. Didn't notice obvious
   damage to those that I've seen, and I've mostly seen the ones from the most
   damaged arrays.
   - Each differential pair of wheels is belted together for common
   rotation - they can't rotate independently.
   - The belts are high quality and appear to be in good shape - though I
   haven't opened up all the robots.
   - Each differential pair of wheels is driven by two motors engaged with
   the same belt. One motor of each pair has a shaft encoder on it.
   - The motors are pretty beefy by club standards.
   - The robot can be pushed around pretty freely - none of the
   transmissions appear to be locked up.
   - I have not yet tried to power the robots or even the motors
   independently.
   - These are 12 volt systems with 3 bays for 9ah SLA batteries.
   - The batteries are supposed to be hot-swappable assuming we can find or
   adapt compatible terminals on new batteries.
   - The built-in chargers, assuming they still work, would only be
   compatible with lead-acid chemistry.
   - We should expect a significant number of variances from the only
   manual I could find (see below) since it documents a later version of the
   platform.
   - None of the robots have the bumper options installed
   - Again, here is the hackaday restoration page for a lower end model
   <https://hackaday.io/project/175890-fixing-up-an-old-pioneer-3-dx>
   - Here is a link to a later version of the P3AT manual
   <https://data2.manualslib.com/pdf7/144/14374/1437347-omron_adept_mobilerobots/pioneer_3.pdf?133d45e569bf1c7561cbc006f686721d>


On Thu, Feb 3, 2022 at 12:45 AM Karim Virani <pondersome64 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>    - This was "Cheap Robotics Platform", but I've renamed it since they
>    didn't turn out so cheap.
>    - The robots finally arrived early today/yesterday, but I haven't had
>    a chance to do anything but the most cursory look over.  Scroll down to see
>    a picture of the 6-pack.
>    - These have a very sturdy/rigid chassis - high quality build
>    - Despite that, there is some obvious damage to a couple of them,
>    typically concentrated on the delicate sonar arrays. There might be some
>    locked-up gearheads too.
>    - There are varying degrees of customization. For example, one has an
>    emergency shutoff switch added. Another has some external framework
>    attached to it. These modifications seem relatively minor.
>    - One of them has thinner solid rubber wheels more suitable for indoor
>    usage.
>    - Since the roads will be icy for the next few days, we are probably
>    looking at Sunday for earliest access.
>    - In terms of choice, I'm taking my pick of the litter and then choice
>    will be ordered by who paid the most and within each $100 tier who paid
>    earliest. But I may have to skip over some folks choice wise if you are not
>    available to review in the established order.
>    - If I haven't committed to offering somebody an "early bird" price,
>    then consider the minimum price to be $500. Feel free to offer more to
>    secure an earlier pick.
>    - I haven't even had a chance to go back and look at those prior
>    commitments. I'm pretty sure I received money for 2 robots already and I'll
>    review that before Saturday. If you sent money already but are not happy
>    with the picking-order described, I'm good with refunding and letting
>    somebody else step in. There are others who have made firm offers at the
>    $500 level but I've held off taking payment pending the shipping
>    uncertainties. Again, it will go in order of who offered the most first and
>    I'll go over the whole email history of this conversation including the
>    private messages to establish that order.
>    - If they don't all get snapped up by DPRG'rs, don't worry, I'm sure
>    I'll find other takers.
>    - We could do a group review of the robots Sunday afternoon or we
>    could set up individual appointments. I'm open to suggestions. Look up Iron
>    Reign Robotics on google maps to see where we are if you want to see them
>    in-person. Masking required.
>
> [image: pioneer3at6pack.jpg]
>
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