Howdy Everyone,


So it's been a bit since I posted my last project (the motorcycle starter repair) and I have been quite busy since then. As such, I am still playing catch up on this website and, today, I will be writing about an older project that I completed back in April. This particular project goes by the name of Symet. I started working on Symet a few years ago when I first purchased Junkbots, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels, by Hrynkiw and Tilden. I developed one version of Symet back in 2009 but it never quite worked right. Having been distracted by other things, I never sucessfully troubleshooted that version. Instead, I started a rebuild from scratch back in April and got a functioning robot in a couple weeks.

Essentially, Symet is a simple little circular robot that does little more than scoot around and bounce off of things. It uses its geometry, primarily, for guidance and navigation. It is powered by some small solar cells. The electricity produced by the cells is conditioned via an FLED solar engine that uses a flashing LED (FLED) to charge a bank of capacitors. The capacitors discharge on a timed interval allowing Symet to pop about a surface. The basic circuit schematic for the Symet is shown in Figure 1. It was provided courtesy of Solarbotics' Junkbots Apache server. 

Hello Once More Everyone,

So in my last couple of blog entries I started talking about troubleshooting the starter system on my motorcycle. I discussed replacing the battery, the solenoid, and testing the starter motor. I found that the starter motor was smoking when I had it hooked up to the rest of the system, but disengaged from the starter clutch. As such, my next task was to disassemble the starter motor and see what I could do to finally get my bike running.

So, basically the starter motor in the XS750 is held together via two long screws that run the length of the tubular body. To disassemble the motor, all I really had to do was unscrew the two screws and pull the body apart. Essentially, the starter motor consists of three sections: the gear assembly (depicted in Figure 1), the armature housing, and the rear brush assembly.