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Floppy the Robot

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the recycling-old-hardware dept.

Alien54 writes "Build your own Robot for almost Free..... As seen here where there are complete plans [and pictures] to build a robot from a 3 1/2" floppy drive without taking it apart. The floppy drive has all of the motors and electronics you need to get started and compete in a robot contest. With some old 5.25 inch drives, you can really get some power."

22 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Make sure to use broken drive... by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Floppy drives these days are of really bad quality... I went through something like a drive every two years at almost no use. Then I rescued a drive from an old 286. It's built like a tank, and still works perfectly.

    My thoughts on the robot as soon as the page loads... ;)

    --
    .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
  2. G-G-G-G-G-Google Cache by Arc04 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Cache of the first page

    http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cache:HC7NCC9XudM C:ohmslaw.com/robot.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

    Enjoy!

  3. Pictures by Adam9 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's a project that was adapted from Fran Golden's floppy.

  4. A Few Other Pages by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Informative

    Step by Step Instructions
    Construction Pictures
    5 1/4" FLoppy II Robot
    "Floppy II" Robot Plans
    Yea, no pictures. I think this site was crawling before /. even got to it... or maybe the subscribers killed it. Subscribers: please mirror this!

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
    1. Re:A Few Other Pages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Thumbnails of the pictures are here

  5. Sorta kinda like Floppy by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Informative

    A Related Site With Pictures!
    He references the /.'ed site, so at least you'll get some usable pics.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  6. G-G-G-G-Google's images cache by Viswanath+Gondi · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8 &oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=+site:ohmslaw.com+Floppy+Robo t+

  7. Re:FINALLY! by critter_hunter · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is sooo old news. Heck, I made a similar project in 2001, based on Ohmslaw's. It really sucked though, so I'll plug in a classmate's project instead of mine: Phil's Floppy Robot, ladies and gentlemen.

    I recall it to be much better than the one featured in the article, but maybe that's just my rose tinted glasses

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  8. Floppylar by gnther · · Score: 1, Informative

    Seems that the poor guys webserver isn't coping, so here's the Google cache.

  9. Re:Who is driving website? Bear is driving website by Traicovn · · Score: 2, Informative

    Google has a Cache of course....

    --

    [Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
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  10. Re:Another variation by JjCale · · Score: 2, Informative

    there's a space in the url, try: http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/banting/ICE3M/unit6/floppy/ floppy.html

  11. Google is your friend by muyuubyou · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:LYumJ-IViUcC: ohmslaw.com/robot.htm&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

  12. Bean there, done that... by snatchitup · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well almost. I've definitely used the stepper motors from disk drives. Steppers can be expensive.

    What I'm suprised at is the need for a the
    1 - 7805 Regulator IC

    I'm pretty sure most disk drives already have a voltage regulator already on board. The part number is no doubt OEM, but they're fairly easy to recognize, since they come close to the main Volatge, and usually use a capacitor in conjunction.

    ------

    Oh and by the way.. This page is a year old...

    1. Re:Bean there, done that... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Informative

      What I'm suprised at is the need for a the
      1 - 7805 Regulator IC

      I'm pretty sure most disk drives already have a voltage regulator already on board. The part number is no doubt OEM, but they're fairly easy to recognize, since they come close to the main Volatge, and usually use a capacitor in conjunction.

      ------

      Why? cince you have a ultra regulated 5 volt source going into it already why waste parts by adding a 5 volt regulator to regulate a already regulated 5 volt supply?

      it doesnt suprise me one bit that there isnt a regulator for any of the regulated supplies coming into the device... remember it's a add-on prephrial for a system that has the powersupply already designed in another module of the system.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:Bean there, done that... by snatchitup · · Score: 2, Informative

      Oh no, you gotta dive in really deep to work with steppers. I've got a bunch of other IC's, such as L293D's for H-Bridge motor control.

      Also, I'm into Atmel AVR's for my brains. I specifically use the AT90S2313, and AT90S8535. I bought these from eBay for cheap just a few $'s each.

      You can't power a motor using the 5V output pins of the AVR. You've got to send them into the L293D (H-Bridge) to drive the motors.

      If you dare dive in. Maybe start with the comp.robotics.misc news group.

      It's a very complicated work (Hobby Robotics) and is a very demanding hobby to produce anything of substance.

      The first thing you need is a breadboard. This can be integrated with a prototyping environment. But you need something to test out your circuits.

      Then, you need soldering, wiring, resistors collections.

      Then, go ahead and get yourself a halfway decent at least dual channel o-scope. After searching on eBay for quite some time, I ended up going with striaght to This dude's site and got a 150Mhz o-scope for $225.

      Have fun. If you're an EE, you'll feel good about using your education.

  13. Careful! by AndroidCat · · Score: 4, Informative
    Does this work for 2x CD-ROM drives, too?

    Are you sure you want to build a robot armed with a laser? :^P

    Actually I did take apart an old 1.5x drive. The motors work nicely off of a small solar panel. The laser module is cute, I wish I had specs. It has a laser diode & drivers, detector for the bounced beam, and coils to steer the beam/detector with a small lens. Cool.

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  14. Re:Duh by EvilTwinSkippy · · Score: 2, Informative
    And what's the use of building yet another gadget-on-wheels that doesn't do all that much, but can be called a "robot". Seriously it's the robotics equivalent to 'hello world'. This kind of thing worries me in all seriousness; there are dozens of worthwhile projects people can spend their time on, coding and debugging work for some of the big OSS jobs that can be really worthwhile!.

    So we can load linux on it!

    Say what you will about the simplicity of the project. I'm just glad to finally have a cheap supply of motors. Those suckers are expensive! And with a +/- 12V drive, all ready to go. I'm slapping myself for not having thought of it first.

    Frankly OSS isn't about developing products, its about developing the building blocks for other people's project, who in turn have their ideas icorporated into a more sophisticated procect, and so on.

    --
    "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
    --Dr.W.Edwards Deming
  15. OKOK link by muyuubyou · · Score: 1, Informative

    link to Google's cache here

  16. Mirror by SirTwitchALot · · Score: 3, Informative

    here's archive.org's mirror:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20020914113646/http://o hmslaw.com/robot.htm

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  17. Yet another mirror not /.ed yet.... by erth · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/banting/ICE3M/unit6/floppy/ floppy.html Has not been /.ed yet

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  18. WOW by amd6891 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I really enjoy reading slashdot, but really this is like 3 years old. My high school science team won a robot contest with this thing back in 2001. We modified it a little bit and wrote a BASIC program and then left the little bugger go at it. It actually is quite amazing, although be forewarned it is more difficult than it looks, my friends and i went through 3 drives to get the parts that we needed or broke or were missing from the other drives. Once built though it is amazing. I probably still have it somewhere i will have to post so pics of my modified "floppy"

  19. Working mirror with all of the contents by signout · · Score: 2, Informative

    HERE IT IS I got all of the files emailed from the author.
    He's upgrading the server BW on monday (12 may 2003) by the way :-)

    ... Dennis