I’m pondering a smaller cheaper version of Acorn
Something on this kind of scale ~1m x 1m frame, 6" hub motors
Using all the electronics of the full-size version.
I realise it wouldn’t save 50% of the cost, but it might be somewhat more accessible
I am wondering why you do not just adapt a recycled electric wheelchair as your mobility unit as they can often be gotten for $100.00 or less and the money can go to the software and electronics.
Because the motors and control system would lack the necessary accuracy.
Tentative BOM
Spotted this one that looks nice and is around the right scale for me. I like the use of aluminum scaffold bar, it’s cheap and widely available in the UK
Hi everyone. I have been experimenting with building something similar to Acorn with 50% size for a while now. I used a ardupilot flight controller (pixhawk) and configured it for navigating a skid steer vehicle like this. In addition I used ardusimple GPS sensor with RTK and a motor controller from Cytron. Everything is currently build with aluminium profile bars - which is very nice for fast prototyping. I plan to build it a little bigger as soon as the rest is working as expected. I am a bit focused on market garding with only 80cm bed-width - so I will not build it much wider than that.
Currently I am working on making the drivetrain more durable.
Afterwards I am thinking of adding some weeding tools inspired by Romi ( The Rover for Weeding | ROMI: Robotics for Microfarms. )
It is currently not close to the durability of Acorn but still it has some similarities and I thought it might be interesting for people to see. I also plan to publish it open source as soon as I have a design is more or less finalized.
Here is a picture of the current version:
Nice, looks good! 75-80cm beds are commonly used here too.
My beds are slightly raised, so I’d be concerned that the caster wheels would erode the edges of the bed over time?
Good to see people hacking on these ideas…
