Lynxmotion Symmetric Quadruped Robot Kit User manual

Symmetric Quadruped Robot Kit Assembly
Instructions Rev. 1.
Safety first! Wear eye protection and never
touch a powered robot!
The purpose of this guide is to construct the
chassis, attach the legs, and install the
electronics. Both the top and bottom body plates
are identical. This guide shows the PS2 receiver
and plate which are purchased separately from
the it.
Image of completed Robot.
(Shown with optional PS2 receiver and mount)
Step 1. Build the ower Body.
Both the top plate and bottom plate are identical.
Place the small blac rivet through the 9V metal
clip and push down through one of the two inner
holes as shown. It does not matter which side.
This will become the bottom plate.
1 x
Figure 1.
Step 2.
Use six 4-40 x 1/4" hex soc et screws to attach
the long aluminum spacers to the bottom body
plate.
6 x 6 x
Figure 2.

Step 3.
Use the second (top) plate for this step. Use four
4-40 x 1/4" hex soc et screws to attach the 1/4"
long M/F plastic spacers to the plate. If you only
plan to use the SSC-32 and Bluetooth, use a F/F
spacer instead of the M/F spacer.
4 x 4 x
Figure 3.
Step 4.
Connect the 9V wiring harness and the servo
battery harness to the top plate. It does not
matter which switch connects to which hole.
Figure 4.
Step 5.
Attach the legs as shown, ma ing sure to use
right or left legs as indicated. Use eight #2 x .
250" tapping screws (two per servo). The legs
should be positioned at 45 degrees to the body
and the servo should be receiving a 1500us pulse
(so the servo is positioned at 90 degrees). If you
are unsude how to do this, please refer bac to
the leg assembly guide. In order to use the
sample code, the legs should be mirror images of
each other. The "rear" of the robot has the two
additional circular cutouts for the power
connectors.
8 x Figure 5.

Step 6.
Here are some general guidelines when inserting
the wires into the SSC-32 and BotBoarduino. Use
a 2mm wide flat blade screw driver. Rotate the
screw both directions loo ing into the end of the
terminal. When you see it open up (moving
downwards), eep turning until it is open
completely. Wrap / twist the wires by hand to
ensure they are aligned as in Figure 5. Be sure
that the wires are fully inserted into the terminals
and that no stray wires are able to touch
each other as this is a short and can cause the
battery to discharge rapidly, causing heat and
possibly fire. DOUB E CHECK THE RED AND
B ACK WIRE CONNECTED TO THE SCREW
TERMINA S - the red wire should go to (+) and
the blac wire to (-), if they are reversed, the
servos and the board will be damaged.
Figure 6.
Step 7
SSC-32 + Bluetooth: This approach applies if you plan to control the robot from the computer
using a Bluetooth device (as is the case with FlowBotics Studio). Attach the power cables as
shown in Figure 7b. Install the SSC-32 onto the body using four 1/4" 4-40 hex screws. Connect
the serial to XBee brea out board's positive pin to pin C (+) on the SSC-32 and the negative pin
to pin D (-) on the SSC-32. Notice the Baud rate jumper is set to 9600. You can install the power
switch(es) to the body in the holes at the rear of the robot. DOUB E CHECK THE RED AND
B ACK WIRE CONNECTED TO THE SCREW TERMINA S - the red wire should go to (+) and
the blac wire to (-), if they are reversed, the servos and the board will be damaged.
4 x

Figure 7. SSC-32 - Bluetooth Wiring
Step 8. Plug the Servos In.
Plug the servos into the SSC-32 as shown in
figure 9 with the yellow signal wire towards the
inside of the board. Simply plug in the servo
associated with the function to the
corresponding pin (see step 9). Once again, be
sure the blac wire is near the outside of the
board and the yellow wire is near the center of
the board as shown in figure 8. Proper cable
routing can be done later.
Figure 8.
Step 9. Servo Connections
Double chec your connections against the figure below. Be sure that red wires go to positive (+)
and blac wires go to negative (-). Also be sure that your jumpers are connected the exact same
way as detailed below. Note that the VL=VS jumper on the SSC-32 is removed, as are the Tx and
Rx jumpers. Depending on the configuration and code, you may also need to change the baud
rate jumpers. The sample code for the BotBoarduino uses 38.4, whereas in order to use the
Bluetooth module, the Baud rate needs to be set to 9600. Note that the wiring from the SSC-32's
Tx / Rx pins to the BotBoarduino's pins are NOT in line - the red / center / power pin needs to be
removed and connected to pin 12 on the BotBoarduino.

Figure 7. Servo wiring to SSC-32
Step 10. Powering the Robot.
Connect a 9v battery to the battery clip to
power the electronics and turn the On/Off
switch to On. You should see the green LED in
the upper right corner of the SSC-32 switch on.
There is also a power LED on the BotBoarduino
If these EDs do not switch on,
IMMEDIATE Y power off your robot and
double check your connections.
Remove the 9v battery from the clip before
moving on.

Step 11.
Connect the 6vdc battery pac to the battery
harness to power the servos. Flip the switch to
turn the servo power on. The EDs should
NOT switch on this time. If they do,
immediately power off your robot and
double check your connections.
Note, our battery pac s do NOT come charged.
You will need to charge your battery before
proceeding to the next tutorial.
Figure 10.
Step 12.
Mount the SSC-32 onto the four hex spacers
used in step 3. Use four 4-40 x 1" hex spacers
to attach the long aluminum spacers to the
underside of the top body plate. The figure
does not show the wiring for clarity.
4 x
Figure 12. Mount the SSC-32
(wires etc. removed for clarity)
Step 13.
Use four 4-40 x 1/4" hex soc et screws to
mount the BotBoarduino to the hex spacers in
the orientation shown, on top of the SSC-32.
The figure does not show the wiring for clarity.
4 x
Figure 13. Mount the BotBoarduino
(wires removed for clarity)

Step 14a.
It is li ely that when you assembled the legs,
the positions were not exactly at 90 degrees.
You have two options to position each of the
servos, the first of which is to use Lynxterm.
Download and install Lynxterm (software
section under "Products"). Disconnect the SSC-
32 from the BotBoarduino and reinstall the Tx /
Rx jumpers, as well as both Baud jumpers (so
it's at 115200). Power the SSC-32 (both VL
and VS), open Lynxterm, select the correct
COM port and clic "All=1500". The servos
should all move to 90 degrees. Next, clic
"Reg." and in the new window, clic "Read".
Position each servo to exactly 90 degrees by
using either the slider or by typing in the
offset. Once this is done, clic "Write", which
then modified the firmware on the SSC-32.
Figure 14a. Lynxterm
Step 14b.
Instead of using Lynxterm to position the
servos at 90 degrees, you can use the SSC-
32's built-in position offset feature. Please
refer to the SSC-32 user guide for more
information. You will need to add the position
offset commands in the sample code.
Step 14c.
If you have FlowBotics Studio, pair with the
Bluetooth module via the FlowBotics Studio
SQ3 project interface. The green light on the
Bluetooth will become solid once a connection
has been established. Clic the "configure"
button to position each of the servos to exactly
90 degree.
Step 15.
The robot should now be wired correctly, but
there with wires going everywhere. It is now a
matter of routing the cables. You can unplug
and re-plug the wires as needed, especially for
the servos, and well as run them through the
body and brac ets. Be certain to leave enough
length so each joint in the legs are able to
move freely and reach all positions and do not
get pinched by the brac ets or servos. Use the
cable ties provided in the it to connect the
wires together. Alternatively, blac electrical
tape or wire wrap also loo nice.
Ensure the battery is perfectly centered inside
the body to ensure the robot wal s properly.
Figure 14. Completed robot showing
(Optional PS2 receiver and PS2 mount)