Pixl Board for Poppy Ergo Jr

Pixl board: a new board to control the motors of your Poppy Ergo Jr from your Raspberry Pi

Whether you’re a novice or experienced robot enthusiast, you’ve probably already heard of the Poppy project, an open-source hardware and software technology platform born of French research.

Poppy draws on a Creative Commons license and a community of contributors sharing freely their knowledge and experience. The project already gave rise to 2 robotics platforms: the Poppy HumanoidPoppy Humanoid and Poppy TorsoPoppy Torso creatures. Poppy Ergo Jr, a fully 3D printed educational robot for easily learning programming and robotics, is the very latest addition to the Poppy family.

This robotic arm comes with 6 Dynamixel XL-320 motors, several interchangeable accessories, a fun programming environment and a manual of activities. This robot can be fully assembled without having to get out your soldering iron. It is controlled by a Pixl board which can also power a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B board.

The Pixl board for Ergo Jr:

• powers up the Raspberry Pi from the 7.5V motor power with an embedded voltage converter;
• provides a conversion from the 5V TTL bus of Dynamixel motors to the 3.3V UART ports of the Raspberry Pi;
• can power up the motors and the programming board with Robotis batteries (LBB-040).

Pixl Board for Poppy Ergo Jr: control up to 6 XL-320 motors

Your Pixl board, which is included in the Poopy Ergo Jr kit, is designed to power and control up to 6 compatible Dynamixel motors. It plugs directly into pins 1 to 10 of your Raspberry Pi, and can be powered via a jack plug or using a Robotis LBB-040 battery holder.

Please note that you need to switch off the power supply of the Pixl board before you disconnect it from your Raspberry Pi. Also, we highly recommend that you do not reload the batteries while they are still plugged into the Pixl board. And, do not combine the 2 powering modes, as it could damage Poppy Ergo Jr’s components.

Technical specifications of the Pixl Board for Poppy Ergo Jr

• Compatible with Raspberry Pi 2/3 Model B (not compatible with Raspberry Pi 3B+)
• Do not power the Raspberry Pi card through the USB port when it is powered via the Pixl card.
• Compatible with Dynamixel XL-320 servomotors and Robotis LBB-040 batteries
• Designed to control and power the motors of the Poppy Ergo Jr robot
• Plugs into pins 1 to 10 of the Raspberry Pi, a bit like a shield
• Powered via the black DC jack plug (7.5V @ 2A min.) or using a LBB-040 battery holder
• Number of controllable motors: 6 max.

Resources for the Pixl Board for the Poppy Ergo Jr Robot

Schematics, code libraries, presentation: in these links you’ll find all the information you need to know about the Pixl board.

• Full GitHub for the Pixl board