Light Seeker robot with MSP430

[emdarcher 8]

Recently finished my first msp430 based robot, a Basic Light seeker!

 

This was a project to get me to learn more about the MSP430 microcontroller. In this project specifically, using multiple ADC inputs and PWMs ( 2 PWMs was a little tricky on the MSP430G2452 but eventually got it ).

 

The robot turns according to the difference between the light values on the left and right, using two Photoresistors/LDRs.

 

The robot is powered my a set of 4 to 5 NiMH 1.2-1.4V batteries which directly power the l293d Motor Driver IC and DC motors, and is also fed into a LP2950-33 3.3V LDO to provide regulated power to the MSP430G2452 IC and Photoresistors/LDRs. Most of my robot designs use a separate power supply for control and motors for stability, but this one has been fine so far and has an abundance of filtering caps.

 

For a better description look at my blog post here:

http://emdinventor-blog.tk/light-seeker-robot-with-msp430/

 

and for the code look at my github repository for the robot's code here:

https://github.com/emdarcher/msp430_tank_robot

 

Some pictures of the robot:

 

 

 

Fritzing diagram ( missing 0.1uF filtering cap across Vcc and GND on the mcu ):

 

 

 

[zlalanne 37]

Nice robot emdarcher!

 

Last I looked at the L293D it was a 5V logic part, did you have any issues interfacing it with the MSP430?

[emdarcher 8]

@@zlalanne

 

The l293d part needs a minimum of 4.5v on the datasheet , so i am supplying it with power straight from the 4-5 AA NiMH batteries to get 4.8 - 6V. The L293D was very picky and would stop working if under 4.5V ( battery strain with only 4 cells ), but as for the control logic, the 3.3V HIGH signals from the msp430 worked fine for the logic inputs on the L293D.

[frankamente 0]

Good proyect