The Raspberry Pi Thread [4]

Pics.

Happy with how it turned out, other than having to use the caster. The Pi camera ribbon cable almost blocks the status LED. I can see a tiny bit of it through my access hole. If I have room under the cover I'm going to try and ad a little bit of diffuser to make seeing the status LED easier. I have one on top of the rover covering the explorer hat and power boost. I originally did it for protection and used the diffuser more for just looks. It looks cool, IMHO anyway. An added bonus is it makes the tiny charge LED's on the power boost look like full sized LED's. The glow is about the size of the eraser on the end of a pencil instead of a little pin prick of light. Really easy to see. I have a few small pieces of the frosted stuff to play with. I'll likely just hot glue a piece on the back of the cover, if I have room and it doesn't interfere with the camera cable. No camera in there yet, but I have plans to add one so the cable is already attached, and I'm using the cover with the camera hole in it. No sense drilling holes in two covers. Although, if this diffuser thing works, I'll likely do it to any of those cases I get. I'll have extra covers.

That green glow is coming from a teeny tiny little LED. The status LED on the Pi Zero is the same size. Without the diffuser the green dot is a little bigger than the head of a PIN.
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I've used all of mine, even the frosted one. The black tinted ninja ones are the ones I like. Great for displays like the sense hat LED matrix. I'll be making one up for my Micro Bit too. All I have left is bits and pieces. I have what I need to the Pi status LED, will actually have to trim it down some more to make it fit. Taking a break from all that today though.

Mulling over getting new motors "that will work in sets of two" for my rover. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/m...ded-back-shaft All metal gears instead of plastic or Teflon. Plus these are the ones that work for sure with the Explorer pHat, https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/c...wd-robot-rover Just have to pick the right gear ratio/rpm.
The only thing I don't like about them is the open gears, so I'll get four of these too, https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/m...otor-enclosure
And four new tires, leaning towards these, https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/p...l-42x19mm-pair or maybe these, https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/m...gy-wheels-pair
The ones I have are 60 MM, a little smaller won't be a big deal. The moon buggy ones are 47mm and the black ones 42mm. I like the black ones but may get the bigger ones, 42mm may be a bit to small. . The moon buggy ones are cheaper too, for what ever reason? The ones I have now won't mate to those motors, they are splined not keyed. Won't happen until my birthday though, so I have another month to mull it all over.

My Rover isn't all that hard, other than picking the right kit. I just bought the wrong one. My kit was originally only two wheel, I decided to get fancy and didn't pay close enough attention to the specs etc. I made assumptions that turned out to be wrong. The Explorer pHat will drive 4 motors, just not 4 of the ones I bought. I'll only be out of pocket for four motors @ 3:50 each and four wheels @ 2:50 each. The rest I can use. The replacements are a bit more expensive but that's how things go some times. Better quality so its not all bad. The only other tricky bit is your python code. That's a done deal for me I have working code.
Have a look at this, https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/...g-the-tiny-4wd same motors I'm going to buy. Same hardware except for the chassis.