Dug out my EggBot Beta. Pen arm still sucks.

[George Neusse]

Hello,

I was fishing around in the garage and found my old EggBot Beta.

It never worked correctly with the solenoid.  I was never able to get anything that was even close to usable.

Then the original eggbot came out.  I contacted Evil and they told me it really was something that could not be fixed at the time.

Role time forward and here we are.  Checking the internet I see that there is a new Pen Arm.  But my controller board is 1.1. I think 1.2 is when the servo connector was added to eliminate the solenoid.  

Looking at the board it looks like I could wire up a servo from available pins.  Just not a nice clean connection like the 1.2 EBB boards on.

OK now the question.  Given that I may be able to wire a servo to the board, would I be able to load the 1.2 EBB board firmware and drive a servo based pen arm?

This would save me over $50. and I already have put enough into the EggBot and have nothing to show for it.

Any advice would be appreciated. 

[Windell H. Oskay]

Hi George,
You wrote to us (at Evil Mad Scientist) twice previously. Once was before the "new" version came out-- and yes, we said that we wouldn't have the upgrade kit ready until the main kit came out. When you wrote to us later after our kit come out, I wrote back to you and described four different upgrade options available for your kit, starting at $10 (for the regulator board and servo motor) and didn't hear back from you after that. (To me at least, that's pretty far from "could not be fixed.") Three years later, I believe that we still have a couple of those upgrade boards left if you want to take us up on the offer.

Otherwise, you certainly can still do it on your own: Upgrade the firmware you'll need to upgrade the firmware and add a 5 V regulator to power the servo motor. Instructions for upgrading the EBB firmware can be found here: http://www.schmalzhaus.com/EBB/

Cheers,
-Windell


Windell H. Oskay, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Chief Scientist
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
175 San Lazaro Ave, STE 150
Sunnyvale CA 94086
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/

[George Neusse]

Wendell,

My apologies for not remembering correctly. Evil has always ruled and I have lost my way.  haha

I would be very appreciative to obtain one of those upgrade boards. Also should I order one of the new arms without a servo separately?

Great news.  I have a grand daughter and this would be wonderful to get the EggBot beta running.

Regards,

George

[Windell H. Oskay]

On Feb 15, 2014, at 7:57 AM, George Neusse <neu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wendell,
>
> My apologies for not remembering correctly. Evil has always ruled and I have lost my way. haha
>
> I would be very appreciative to obtain one of those upgrade boards. Also should I order one of the new arms without a servo separately?

You have the option to either upgrade the old pen arm or replace it with a new version, specially designed to fit the old chassis.
We'll contact you off list to follow up, if that's okay. :)

[George Neusse]

yes please.   Thank you very much!