jstevenperry

Not a robot arm: it's a Trek 5000 road bike. The scope is a Tek 2246, 100 MHz, 4 Channel.. The PSUs are (from l to r) 50 V 1-3 A, 15 V 1-3 A. It's a cool shop. I like it. :-)

Here's my lab (it's got some other stuff in it too:-)):

Thanks for the link. The motors I want are out of stock :-( but the prices are good (even after conversion from Euros to dollars). I'll check back with them...

They make 'em smaller. Here's one that's 2/3 the size of the one in the link I sent, but costs $1 more each. http://www.mpja.com/productview.asp?product=12342+MD. The millipede project specs call for 16 of these motors. I was trying to keep the cost low. --s

I found some of these pager motors here: http://www.mpja.com/productview.asp?product=12343+MD

Ah, heck. Don't sweat it. I was really just giving MP (the moderator) a little jab just as a little joke. Welcome to our forum!

There are a lot of great articles on this site. Start with "articles" from the main page, and especially this one: http://www.electronics-lab.com/articles/basics/theory/index.html. Plus ask questions in the "Electronics Chit Chat" forum. This section is specifically for questions about the projects listed on this site. MP will probably be by later to break your knee caps for posting this question here :-). Don't worry, it's happened to many of us. Good luck!

Okay, cool. Well, I have seen vibrating motors in the various electronics catalogs. So now I know what to look for. Thanks.

I have a question about the millipede project (http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/games/002/index.html). What the heck are "PagerMotors" and where do I get them? Thanks!

True, but they have an extensive selection of identical footcare items ;-)

It took 2:22 on my 3GHz HP nx9110 laptop. 1GB RAM.

A 15W soldering iron is fine for most PCB applications. I have one from Radio Shack I bought for about 8 bucks. I've replaced the tip once. It's been a good soldering iron.

I got it now. Thanks for the help. The only reason I decided to use a 7408 is that's all I have on hand. Thanks again to audioguru for the help. Somehow all of the great advice in guru's posts boiled down to "connect a 270 Ohm resistor between each input pin on the TTL Gate IC and ground." I've posted a more detailed explanation with a picture on my blog. http://jstevenperry.com/blog/?p=37

Okay, I'm just going to have to play the "I'm an idiot" card here and ask exactly what the heck to do to wire up this 7408 AND gate. I've got +5 VDC going into Vdd, and Vss wired to ground. I want to use as inputs +5V or nothing. However, it doesn't seem to matter what I run in, since there is a mystery voltage on the input pins (even with NOTHING connected to them). Audioguru suggests using a pull down resistor to pull the inputs to about .4V, and I'd be happy to do that, but don't know what to do. I've googled my fingers off trying to find a circuit diagram to show me exactly a properly wired (with all the "pull down" stuff in place) 7408 gate looks like. So, my question is: what do I actually do on the breadboard to make this "pull down" resistor thing happen? Thanks.

Thanks, guru. I'm recently getting back into electronics after a long break (since college - about 15 years). I discovered after I purchased 10 ea. of the 74xx series (AND, NAND, OR NOR, XOR and hex inverters) from Jameco that they're old, cantakerous TTL gates. That being said, you're saying some stuff that I don't get. I guess it's the "pull it down" comments that are throwing me. What do you mean? How do you "pull down" voltage? Throw it across a resistor? There's no CMOS gate involved in my circuit (that I know of). Basically, each input to the AND is a 5V input. I figured (naively, I guess) that if both were 5V coming in, that the output would go high and 5V (give or take) would be output. That's what I want: two inputs AND'ed together to produce an "answer." That's it. I guess I need to research more about how these old 74xx ICs work so I can figure out how to get them to play nicely in my circuit. Maybe I need other circuitry to get them to cooperate. Maybe I should order the basic logic series in CMOS form from Jameco and just cut my losses? Thanks for your reply. I feel so lost!!