Simple product ideas

#1

Here are some tiny suggestions, sorry if they are impractical, I am a beginner in electronics and mechanics.

18mm screws:
often the 22mm screws are a tad too long and the 14mm are just too short. How about a set of 18mm screws ? I would order a 50-pack immediately.

usb power:
Allow for a usb cable to provide power to the meduino and the base shield. Using things like a smart power base http://cobbaut.blogspot.be/2013/08/independent-raspberry-pi.html is easier (and lighter) than the battery pack.
Or you could make your own usb-chargable battery, because this smart power base from MTS is expensive (70 dollars is ok, but my country charges an extra 50 dollars import tax on this).

gyro?
A gyro sensor would be nice, or is there a way to use the Lego gyro sensors ?

multiplexer support?
Maybe this works already ? I have one Hitechnic touch sensor multiplexer. It would be nice to be able to add four touch sensors on one port. For example on a round robot (think roomba-like) that drives around and bumps into things, it would allow detecting the bumps on all four sides, while still having room to add several other sensors.

cheers,
paul

#2

Hi Paul,
Thanks for your suggestions.

About the 18mm screws we will try to add it in our products soon in the future.

About the usb power:
In our system, as we should drive the motors, so the voltage of the battery must be at least 7V. But the voltage from the usb is 5V. So we cann’t use this in our system. And we are now trying to change the power system and may upload of that after the design.

About the gyro:
Of course, it is in our future plan list. We will release it is finished. Maybe we can not use Lego gyro sensor now in our system. We will try to make it come ture after our gyro module is finished.

About the multiplexer support:
As we add I2C interface in our port now, the multiplexer works already, and we will make an adapter for this. The adapter will release so after the designing.

Thanks for your suggestions and support, Paul!

#3

Just a comment about the power:

The usb port of a pc can only give 500mA max, so can’t drive motors and stepper, is not recommend.

There are step up power adapter to make 5v of usb to any voltage to about 16v but the current will be even less, maybe less than 350mA

Cheers

#4

nice suggestions….