Hi guys , before i will tell you what we and especially I am currently developing for the Robot I'd like to show you what we have done so far. Since the beginning of the new Robot, which started approximatly in october 2006, I and Jens W. were responsible for the Hardware Part (the Embedded Board) of the Robot. To provide enough CPU Power for the calculation that have to be done on the robot, we needed to have a really fast Processor with a minimal space requirement, so we choose the XTX format (see www.congatec.com). The XTX module we use is featuring a "Low Voltage Intel Pentium Core2Duo 1.66Ghz". Since those XTX modules only contain the most necessary Parts for an X86 system (CPU + Southbridge) somekind of motherboard had to be build. That's where the real work began..... — hauschil, 03.03.2007 20:18

After several days of reading into the different hardware standarts (e.g. USB 2.0, PCI Express,...) and working into the layout/routing software we began developing the XTX Carrierboard Rev 1. The development of Version 1 took us about 2 month, the finished Carrierboard had the following features : 4 x USB 2.0 , 1 x Sata Port, 1 x Debug Port, 1 x Ethernet , 2 x RS232, 1x Audio Out, 6x i2c bus and some other minor features. (insert Picture here) After everything was soldered and working fine, we decided to build a second revision. — hauschil, 03.03.2007 20:18

After playing around a bit with our XTX Carrierboard, we decided to develop another version of the board which should have some important new features. With Revision 1 we had to use external boards for several things, We had to use two external DC Converterboards, one for our Carrierboard and one for the servo powersupply. Furthermore we used an external board to control our robotservos which we connected over the RS232 serial connection. This had to be changed. The Development of the new version which includes all features of Rev. 1 and some additional features like 24 Servoports, additional USB 2.0 ports, and a nice powersupply connector, started around the end of january 2007 and is currently in production. It should be finished in the middle of march. — hauschil, 03.03.2007 20:18

(coming soon) — hauschil, 03.03.2007 20:18