LogFAQs > #976896698

shadowsword87 posted...

Oh, ok so this is just theoretical then. You don't have a breadboard setup or a raspberry pi or ESP32 or something physical.

No, I imagine my final setup will be 3 custom ordered PCBs with many custom motor controllers (I got the CM4 specifically for this). I got into CAD to throw together a joint, but realized I have to do a lot of info gathering before I can even start.

shadowsword87 posted...

Oh, the reason why robotics tends to use stepper motors instead of DC motors is they don't have any internal feedback, so you're way more likely to burn out your motor when, say, the motor is caught. It's fine if you're in a completely controlled system, but if you're dealing with real machines out in real life you're going to cause issues.

You could always create a feedback loop, but you should look up control loop programs and the math associated with it if you're serious about it.

I would prefer to come up with a solution that intentionally isn't 100% efficient so that it matches the organic movement of an animal. I think steppers and servos are rigid and noisy, on top of being done to death, and it wouldn't be very interesting to me. I generally find most robotics projects kind of unimpressive for those reasons.

When designing my PCBs, I will make sure I take into account burning out my motors, as well as reading feedback, so that I can gauge how much pressure is being put on my motors and feed that back to my CPU. That's much appreciated.