Electrical Connections

System Overview

This overview shows the whole system together with all necessary modules.

LEDs and Buttons

The robot is equipped with three buttons with leds. The buttons can be used to trigger actions. The leds are used to indicate operating states. The next picture shows the pin connections.

Test

The buttons and leds must be connected to the breadboard (picture at bottom of this page) where the necessary resistors are placed and where the connectors to the Beaglebone blue board can be made.

ConnectorPin assignmentBBBlue ChannelConnection
(GPIOx_y → x*32+y)
GP0 GPIO3_17 113 Green Button
GPIO3_20 116 Green LED
GPIO1_17 49 Red LED
GPIO1_25 57 Red Button
3.3V
GND
GP1 LED_GREEN
LED_RED 1 evtl. Magnet
GPIO3_1 97 Blue Button
GPIO3_2 98 Blue LED
3.3V
GND

Motors and Encoders

The Faulhaber Motors are equipped with a ribbon cable with connector.

Test

Connections:

  1. Motor -
  2. Motor +
  3. GND
  4. Udd (5V)
  5. Channel B
  6. Channel A

Motors receive an analog signal directly from the Beaglebone blue board. Encoders are supplied with 5V from the Beaglebone blue. The channel signals A and B of the encoder need a level shifter from 5V to 3.3V. We use a bi-directional level shifter of Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/product/757

Test

This is one connection example for one motor, with encoder:

Breadboard

We connect all additional components to a breadboard of Adafruit https://www.adafruit.com/product/1609 and place it near the Beaglebone blue. Connections are shown in the following sketch:

Physical Situation