One Small Stepper For a Man

In the last post I introduced a new term into the world. Actually, it was a very useful acronym; FUMU which takes its roots from the always popular Navy acronym FUBAR. Again, used in a sentence, ‘Here is a picture of our many FUMUs that are totally FUBAR’. Welcome to the Wailer Skunk Works, expanding the World’s vocabulary one acro at a time.

A Sample of FUMUs

Originally, I envisioned using stepper motors to drive our Self Driving Wheels but I have change course. Why? Because I know nothing about stepper motors and I appear to be lacking basic anthropological motivation to learn. You see, a regular DC motor is about as complicated as a Pear Tree. Plug it into a battery and it runs. (OK, there are a few missing parts in that brief overview of DC motors but you get the point. Simple, pimple)

Stepper motors are simple as well but they take ‘programing’ an interface board using a computer. Now, just the word ‘programming’ makes me want to puke. However, that did not stop me from ordering a stepper motor (actually a few steppers.) Nonetheless, upon opening the package from Sparkfun, I started to gag. What was I thinking? And from a company named after the most famous arsonist ever; Lester Sparky Phun.

Aside from the nausea matter, I could not figure out how to actually variable-control Old Bob’s speed. Let alone try and control Bob remotely. I actually consulted a stepper motor expert who also knows remote controlled air stuff and cars. His response to desire to incorporate stepper motors into Bob was simple.

“WTF would you use stepper motors for? Do you really think this thing is going to Mars? Get a friggin grip and use a conventional RC set up” Those were powerful words coming from the creator of Mythbusters. (Ok, he wasn’t really even associated with Mythbusters.)

That takes us up to Step 450, what is a conventional RC setup.  Here is what we going with initially.

Still to figure out:
1. How do we get two motors manufactured to spin at 12,000 revolutions per minute to slow down so Bob runs at 20 feet a minute?
2. How are we going to steer these Self Driving Wheels?
3. How far can we go with Bob’s Artificial Intelligence given that I gag on programming?
4.  What happens to this segment of Wailer Works Blog when this entire endeavor stops sticking to the wall and starts hitting the proverbial fan.
           a. The Superforecasters are at 37% sticks against the wall and 63% hitting the fan.