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balancing-cube's Introduction

Balancing cube

The cube balances on its corner using three integrated reaction wheels

This repository contains all design, documentation, configuration and other files related to the balancing cube that I have designed and built.

  • Mechanical parts are designed in Fusion 360.
  • Circuit boards are designed in KiCad 7.
  • Code has been written using Arduino IDE.
  • Motor drivers are commissioned and tuned using Escon Studio.
  • Motors and motor controllers are available from Maxon.
  • Circuit boards and custom mechanical parts can be ordered from PCBWay, for example.

A YouTube video demonstrating the balancing cube is available here.

Want to build one? Read this!

This repository should contain everything you need to order and/or build parts for this cube. Take into account the following:

  • I replaced four of the eight 16AWG wires in each cable assembly by 22AWG wires since only four wires carry large currents. The others carry +5V and hall sensor signals. This reduces weight and makes the cables easier to handle, as well as reducing strain on the mating connectors. The motor connection is rather fragile and might break if stressed too much.
  • The ESP32 board does not go into flashing mode automatically. I fixed this by adding a 10 uF capacitor between the enable and reset pin, as described here.
  • In my blog post, I describe some errors in the design of the motherboard. These have been resolved in the files that are available in this repository.
  • For your own safety, I highly recommend taking precautions to reduce the risk of trapping fingers between the spinning flywheels. One option is to attach very thin (spring steel) discs to each wheel, which may be (laser)cut from larger sheets that are readily available. I do not have designs available for such safety devices yet.

More information

More information about this project and my other projects is available on my website.

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balancing-cube's Issues

Clarification Opportunities

Hello!

First off I want to reiterate how amazing your work here has been to replicate. The design work of the CAD models and electronics are truly world class; the pieces first together beautifully and things are relatively easy to follow.

Some discoveries I've had while building this:

  1. Unclear on Routing Error / Bodge Wire reference: in the website you have a picture showing a mistake made on the routing for the motor controllers and how you corrected it with a bodge wire bridge. It's unclear to me if I need to replicate this, or if you corrected the routing in the final PCB design. Could you help explicitly clarify either way so I know what I should do?

  2. Well-lit / High Res Picture to help with placement: I've struggled to determine if all my placed components are in the correct orientation. I found and followed the schematic in most cases, but I would find it extremely useful to have a well-lit, close-up top-down picture of the board (before placing the dev board). There is one dark picture on the website where I could see my fuses were backward and fix it, and I think the TVS Diodes have the cathode / grey stripe to the right, but I can't quite see.

  3. I noticed there is no description of the steps used to flash the dev board. While I'm capable of bumbling through basic Arduino setup and the trial and error process of installing Expressif plug-ins until I find the right things to target this board, and figuring out which connection to plug into and what port this resolves to in Arduino, having any sort of steps laid out as a template / what worked before would greatly assist me in getting it right sooner and more easily.

  4. I ordered everything in the BOM, and I seem to be missing the battery cable from the power board to the motherboard. Could you provide the reference to that / add to the BOM?

  5. I don't seem to see where I can understand which motor controller board connects to which motor. I'm studying the pictures to try and see, but it's not very clear.

Again this is a beautiful work of art! Thank you for building & sharing.

Batteryboard design

The schematic for the battery board has pin 1 on the OUT connector floating, I believe this is an error and they should be tied together to pin 1 of the IN connector.

Also based on the switch position the power flows opposite of the indicated ON or OFF labels. I have switched the labels and added pin 1 on the OUT connector to the GND plane on my own board.

Include parts list?

Hello!

I've set about trying to build this, and ordered all the parts listed in the Article and Readme / in repo.

I've ordered:

  • motors
  • motor controllers

I'm currently missing:

  • the exact countersunk screws & count
  • the capacitors by type and count
  • the other transistors / parts seen on the PCBs
  • the exact small radial ball bearing used
  • the exact battery used (useful for dimensions even if I get a different one)

A picture of the PCB without the controllers and ESP32 in place would be helpful, especially to see the IMU placement and make sure I have it correct.

Thank you for creating this project! It's enjoyable and inspiring to build.

Overcurrent Error on Escon Controller

I keep getting Overcurrent Error randomly in a few seconds after the cube starts balancing and it causes the cube to fall. The error appears randomly in one of the 3 escon controllers. The error is both visible in the escon studio and with the status led (2 red blinks). I tried regulation tuning as well but it didn't help. Any ideas what might be the problem?
image_6209779

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