Making a Rpi Pico Based Smart Vehicle

Projects

Jun 2021

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Jul 2021

Nov 2021

tlfong01

13 

Jun ’21

I am going start a project on a Pico based smart vehicle. The project will be in many parts. The first part is summarized below.

Pico Smart Vehicle, Part 1 – Controlling a DC motor.

Introduction

This project is on how to use the Rpi Pico with a DC motor controller, such as L298N, to drive a toy DC motor with a speed encoder, such as the N20.

This first part of the project is focused on Pico, Motor Controller, and DC motor.

Rpi4B or Pi-Top 4 would be used as the master controller to communicate with this motor controller, and also controllers of other actuators and senors.

Update 2021jun30hkt2044

When I said above that I would use Rpi4B or Pi-Top 4 as the master controller, I had little confidence I was saying something sensible, because I never saw a Pi-Top 4 before. So I watched a recent video ([Ref 4])((https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFWbuj9JdiQ 21)) to make sure I know what is going on recently.

I was glad to see the video title “Rpi 4 on the Go” and that I can use Rpi OS instead of Pi-Top OS. The touch screen and BlueTooth keyboard also look impressive.

However, I am a very slow guy, so I will be going very slowly, with this Part 1 of controlling a DC motor. 

One other thing is that I am not too sure that I am doing the right thing in this forum. I used to write sort of blogs in rpi.org forum, and also short answers in StackOverflow and Stack Exchange Q&A sites such as for Rpi… So this kind of project discussion topic looks very new to me. I guess I need to search to find out how should I start a project discussion topic.

So I searched and found this post about projects category (Ref 5 3). I am glad to know that this is a new thing, so I arrived in good time.

References

1. Compatible motors/cabling – @Ltrain, 2021may25 3
2. N20 Gear Motor (50:1 Ratio, 460 rpm, with Encoder) – Servo City 7
3. How to Use Your Raspberry Pi Pico With DC Motors (Using DRV8833, L298 or L9110S) – By Les Pounder, Tom’s Hardware 2021jan30 28
4. Raspberry Pi 4 On The Go! Pi-Top 4 FHD Touch Display & Bluetooth Keyboard Review – 2021jan25, 74,468 views 21
5. About the Projects category post – pi-topTEAM, 2021mar19 3
6. Dr. William Rankin Lecture (On Design etc) 1:18 hrs – Arkansas State 1.2K subscribers, 579 views, 2014sep05 4