Surveyor Robotics Journal

Surveyor Robotics Journal

	email: support@surveyor.com web: Surveyor Corporation rss: Subscribe Archives March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 Februray 2006 January 2006	Tue, 07 Mar 2006 dongle version of SRV-1 base station radio Well ... we got our fancy SMD rework station for attaching the Silicon Labs CP2102 USB to UART bridge chip on the SRV-1 base station radio board, and it really didn't work all that well, so we tried another method shown on the Spark Fun Electronics website. Hard to believe, but this worked really well. These guys are actually surface-mounting the same Silicon Labs chip in this tutorial. In case you're wondering, here's their version of a production solder reflow station - I didn't take photos of our skillet, but it's nicer, as it doesn't have any sides that reach up and cause burns, though it didn't cost any more than their version. Here's the SRV-1 radio board with the CP2102 attached. We're still testing this new design - we've already found one change to the circuit board, so initial robot shipments will go with the original radio shown with the other SRV-1 photos until this design is solid. By the way, I should mention that there are 2 versions of these Zigbee radio modules - the one we're using has maximum RF power output of approximately 70 milliwatts, and pretty good range. The other version only outputs 1 milliwatt, so the range is maybe 70% less, but the cost drops by about 40%. We will eventually add an option for the lower cost version of the radio for users who don't need such a wide range and want to save some money. Posted Tue, 07 Mar 2006 14:25 \| HTML Link \| see additional stories ...