RP6 ROBOT SYSTEM - 1. Introduction
1.3. The RP6v2 and Expansion possibilities
The RP6v2 is a slightly improved Version of the orignial RP6. There are new Encoders
and more expansion connectors and some other small improvements.
The main change are the new
Encoders. On the original RP6
the Encoders had to be adjus-
ted to deliver a correct signal.
This was done in the factory,
but after shipping it could easily
happen that these had to be re-
adjusted by the user. With the
new Encoder electronics, this is
no longer required (in rare
cases a readjustment may be
neccessary, but this is quite
simple now due to larger and
easier to access potentiomet-
ers). The stickers with the en-
coder pattern are now made of
a more robust material and
have higher contrast, which in-
creases the signal quality and
increases adjustment tolerence.
The motor and encoder cables
were directly soldered onto the
mainboard on the RP6. Now
these have connectors and can
be easily disconnected, which allows usage of the Chassis and Mainboard seperate
from each other (the RP6 already had these connectors since 2010). This makes it
easier to solder your own circuits to the Mainboard as it is more convenient to handle
without the whole chassis connected to it. In case of any defects, a replacement does
not require soldering anymore and repairing is easier.
There are now 9 additional connectors / pinheaders on the mainboard that offer vari-
ous additional expansions options (s. appendix). Four of these have been there on the
RP6 as well, but were unpopulated and had to be soldered by the User.
The main fuse has been changed from 2.5A to 3.15A, as there are now some addition-
al power supply connectors and the power distribution has been improved. This allows
usage of slightly higher power expansions. The Motor Drivers have been improved
with new more powerful and more reliable MOSFETs. These have even lower resist-
ance than the ones used before.
All these modifications increase the cost significantly. Over the last few years there
were also lots of increases in production cost, thus we can not include a Experiment
Expansion Board for free any longer, this has to be purchased seperately. The rest of
the Robot has not changed much, in order to keep the Software 100% compatible. If
you need more processing power or additional I/Os, you can choose frome two expan-
sion boards: the RP6-M32 and the new RP6v2-M256-WIFI. These provide a lot of addi-
tional processing power and lots of interfaces for sensors and actors.
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