Reviving the Skull Tote

Published on 2018-06-07 in Tote.

I have a number of prototypes of Tote that I have built over the years, but the most presentable one is the one I pimped up in  https://hackaday.io/project/6050-tote/log/48853-pimp-your-bot

Unfortunately, that robot had a number of problems. Unlike all other Totes, it was powered with a 2S lipo battery, with a buck converter bringing to voltage down to 5V. That tiny buck converter would only work for a few minutes, and then starting to shut down when the current drawn by the servos made it too hot. Which would result in the robot having a seizure. I also discovered that the motor in one of the servos got stuck — rather common with the cheap SG90 servos — and would need to be replaced.

So I decided to open up this robot, replace the power with a more standard setup (a 1S lipo connected directly without any voltage stabilization), add a battery charging circuit, and replace the servo.

Here’s the USB port for the battery charging circuit:

And the replaced servo, primed with black paint, waiting to dry for a dry-brushing:

And finally the whole robot, it all its robot glory: