Bimo History

The Bimo was a great success in 2008-2006 within the Festival Robotique EPFL and other events in the French part of Switzerland. More than 2000 were built. Now the documentation in English is ready and Didel is pleased to present the Bimo on Tindie.

Newbee's learns a lot taking 2 hours to build the Bimo; insert and solder electronic components, get reliable motor wires with strain release, assemble plastic parts. Several already soldered SMD components makes the Bimo compact. All soldered components are explained and provide a good understanding of the schematic. The assembly brochure of 14 pages is well illustrated and there is an assembly video.

Specially molded parts hold the 6mm 30 Ohm motors. No gearbox, no wheels. The IR handle is fully assembled and tested, ready to work.

Bimo's friends

The efficient motor design, using 4mm pagers motors was used on the heartbreaking Rhodo (for collectors of vintage robots), and on the mini-turtle-bot, you can get on Tindie.

Software

Microcontrollers are a Microchip PIC 16F630 on the robot (DIL14 socket, Tiny 24/44/84 pin compatible) and a SMD 16F676 on the control handle. Batteries are NiMH 30mA, recharged at no risk from a mini-USB 5V source through a limiting resistor. More than 30 minutes of operations are guaranteed when fully charged. The infrared protocol is original since it allows to control up to 4 Bimo at the same time. Protocol and Arduino example can be found on www.didel.com/Emir.pdf. Bimo motors are programmed using PFM and not PWM. This permits very slow speed. The information of the linear signal given by the joystick is converted into non-linear PFM values. Setting the joystick to midrange position gives only 20% of the maximum speed.

What you get

The Bimo kit includes all the parts including fine solder. The BimoTel handle is pre-assembled. Assembly instructions are included.