A look inside the external
gearbox on the Balboa 32U4
Balancing Robot.
The Balboa uses
two
micro metal gearmotors to drive external
2-gear gearboxes that further increase the gear ratio and support
the weight of the robot with ball bearings rather than the motor
shafts themselves. The Balboa kit gives you five reduction options
to choose from when assembling your robot (ranging from 1.64:1
to 2.88:1), and you can further customize the gear ratio based on
which micro metal gearmotor you choose for your robot. The
integrated quadrature encoders require gearmotors
with
extended motor shafts
, and we specifically recommend the
[https://www.pololu.com/product/3072]
[https://www.pololu.com/product/3073]
or
[https://www.pololu.com/product/3074]
versions. Note that torque is
approximately proportional to the gear ratio and speed is
inversely proportional, so as the gear ratio gets bigger, the torque
increases while the speed decreases.
Micro metal gearmotor HPCB with
extended motor shaft.
The kit includes magnetic encoder discs, and the encoder sensors are built into the Balboa 32U4
control board, so you do
not
need to order encoders with your motors.
Wheel selection
We recommend using the Balboa with 80×10mm Pololu wheels, which are available in five colors
—
[https://www.pololu.com/product/1430]
,
[https://www.pololu.com/product/1431]
,
[https://www.pololu.com/product/1432]
[https://www.pololu.com/product/1433]
,
and
[https://www.pololu.com/product/1434]
— but our larger
[https://www.pololu.com/product/
and smaller
[https://www.pololu.com/product/1425]
are also options if you know
what you are doing (note that the 70×8mm wheels only offer a few millimeters of clearance when the
robot is balancing).
Pololu Balboa 32U4 Balancing Robot User’s Guide
© 2001–2019 Pololu Corporation
1. Overview
Page 9 of 97
