Week of 4/7/25

I spent this week testing my newly assembled balancing rig. I started by transferring all the code and circuits from my PD testing ramp, and attaching all of it to the servos and sensors on the balancing rig.

I imported all the code from my PD ramp, and apart from some slight modifications, i was able to get the feedback to work with the actuator arm and motor gimbal.

Once I was happy with how everything looked, I moved onto some tests with the gyroscope running.

I tried attaching my original aluminum flywheels to the motor gimbals, but I had forgotten that I still hadn't fixed the issue of them spinning off center that I've had for the entire length of this project. I experimented with some 3D printed flywheels, but I removed them from the 3d printer before they had cooled down and ended up warping the plastic, so those didn't spin properly either.

3d printed flywheel on top, aluminum flywheel on the bottom

After a couple days of testing, I decided on a final design. This consists of an acrylic mount that sits between the motor and the metal flywheel, and the flywheel mounting to the acrylic instead of screwing directly into the motor. This means that hopefully I can combine the weight of the aluminum with the precision of lasercut parts, giving me a weighty but stable flywheel that I can use as a gyroscope.

Acrylic mount. 3 holes mount the disc to the motor, and 3 additional ones to hold the aluminum.