🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan27.043305.7387@sbcs.sunysb.edu> shane@cs.sunysb.edu (Shane Bouslough) writes:
>I've been thinking a lot about legs recently (don't we all? :-).
>If you're going to do a nice leg, say Brooksian, it seems like
>you'd need about one miniboard per. If you use 6 legs on your
>beastie, that's quite a few miniboards. Is that a good way to go?
>Or is something a bit more powerful a better idea?

I have been looking at this same problem (I have been designing a 6 legged
walking robot) and have come to the conclusion that the simplest/least expensive
solution is to use one of the dedicated stepper-motor controller chips.  At
about $10 a pop + $15 for a stepper motor, it will cost me only $75 per leg
(excluding the mechanicals).  Further, the each motor can be controlled by
2 bits (step and direction) thus allowing all 18 motors to be controlled by only
36 TTL outputs.

Mark Epperson