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Here's next week's video, early for Patrons!  It's a new 'remote for everything'. This one has a touchscreen so I can define any interfaces I want for any robot in the future.

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Previews only

PREVIEW VERSION: Building a Touchscreen Smart Robot Remote

It's time to built a touchscreen smart remote to replace my original 'everything remote'. The new version is based on a Raspberry Pi and is ROS enabled so I can publish and subscribe to ROS topics. The touchscreen interface will get populated as I do more robotics development. You can support me on Patreon or buy my Merchandise: *************************** Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/xrobots Merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/james-bruton *************************** Affiliate links - I will get some money of you use them to sign up or buy something: *************************** Matterhackers 3D printing supplies: http://www.matterhackers.com?aff=7500 Music for your YouTube videos: http://share.epidemicsound.com/xrobots *************************** Other socials: *************************** Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xrobotsuk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xrobotsuk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/xrobotsuk *************************** CAD and Code for my projects: https://github.com/XRobots Huge thanks to my Patrons, without whom my standard of living would drastically decline. Like, inside out-Farm Foods bag decline. Plus a very special shoutout to Lulzbot, Inc who keep me in LulzBot 3D printers and support me via Patreon. HARDWARE/SOFTWARE Below you can also find a lot of the typical tools, equipment and supplies used in my projects: Filament from: https://www.3dfuel.com/ Lulzbot 3D Printers: http://bit.ly/2Sj6nil Lincoln Electric Welder: https://bit.ly/2Rqhqos CNC Router: https://bit.ly/2QdsNjt Ryobi Tools: http://bit.ly/2RhArcD Axminster Micro Lathe: http://bit.ly/2Sj6eeN 3D Printer Filament: http://bit.ly/2PdcdUu Soldering Iron: http://bit.ly/2DrNWDR Vectric CNC Software: http://bit.ly/2zxpZqv Why not join my community, who are mostly made up of actual geniuses. There’s a Facebook group and everything: https://www.facebook.com/groups/287089964833488/ XROBOTS Former toy designer, current YouTube maker and general robotics, electrical and mechanical engineer, I’m a fan of doing it yourself and innovation by trial and error. My channel is where I share some of my useful and not-so-useful inventions, designs and maker advice. Iron Man is my go-to cosplay, and 3D printing can solve most issues - broken bolts, missing parts, world hunger, you name it. XRobots is the community around my content where you can get in touch, share tips and advice, and more build FAQs, schematics and designs are also available.

Comments

Anonymous

Cool design James, am looking forward to seeing how you develop a GUI. Btw I checked out your sponsor 3D Fuel, but they do not seem to have much choice available, so not very good for the hobbyist compared with other suppliers; just thought you'd should know.

XRobots

Thanks, 3D Fuel are a manufacturer so I guess some resellers have more because they resell multiple brands?

Anonymous

Indeed but there are other manufacturers in the UK like 3DQF for example that seem to have more range available (I think they are also about to start making PETG)

XRobots

They came to me, so I'm ok with it. I mostly use PLA and it's pretty good!

Anonymous

I appreciate that James, and not suggesting you should change, it was just an observation that if you're advertising them on your channel it's a bit disappointing as a viewer/ supporter to find they don't appear have very much choice. When I checked they only had one colour in the right size and type for instance.

Anonymous

Wow, looks great! I love that you can now have a gui on the remote rather than just physical buttons. I'm sure that'll become very useful in the future! Not sure if this would even work, but is there a way to make your own app for a tablet or something like that, that connects with ros? That way at events, if people in the audience have your app, they could play a part in controlling the robots! (After filtering their data so they don't just crash the robot :P)

XRobots

Yes there's already a ROS Android app for driving, but I couldn't make the robot go backwards with it, I think it's out of date now. All of ROS is open source so there's nothing to stop you making your own.

Anonymous

Great work James! I have an interface I made in combination with vuejs and python if you’re interested

Anonymous

I can put the topics in an environment file and you just compile it. Just an idea

Trevor Flowers

Nice post! By coincidence, I'm putting together a similar two-stick + touchscreen controller with a PyPortal and a Feather for BTLE.

Thomas Messerschmidt

You say that your new computer is "transportable". I can't imagine that it would be easy to move that behemoth box around especially when you put it into some sort of protective case. Why not use a laptop?

Anonymous

Cool! Will you also connect NRF for compatibility with old robots?

XRobots

I'm still deciding what to do with that. There aren't that many old robots in one piece at the moment.

Anonymous

Right now I use for remote control only my Taranis QX7. The Smartbus receivers are quite convenient to use since it's basically an UART. But I will definitive follow the project and build my own version, and try to keep it compatible. I think some kind of Transmitter module bay would be a nice touch.

XRobots

I really want to get data (and video) back to the remote, so making it all WiFi makes sense.

Anonymous

yes for close distances WiFi is fine. But for lower delays and longer range a failsafe system option would be nice.

XRobots

Yes I haven't found anything more reliable than 2.4Ghz DSM, it depends on the application I guess.

Andrew R Gross

Not only is this amazing, but it's super timely: I'm building a GUI for a pi-based toy for my neice in pygame right now, and I'm excited to copy parts of this code. Thanks!!

Anonymous

This video is so timely! I'm designing something with similar goals and general components as yours for my (wheeled) ROS robot too. I might make mine a bit curvier, trying to take inspiration from the Spot remote controller. Great job as always!

XRobots

The only reason it's so big is down the the joysticks - you could use thumbsticks, but then you lose the extra axis on each. My other choice was to install Linux on a Nintendo Switch, but it's more costly and I wasn't certain I'd be able to access the joysticks and buttons before buying one.