Found a Robot!!! :) which parts are usable...and what are they!?? WARNING:IMAGE HEAVY

[Joey1558]

Hey everyone,
I found this toy robot from when I was younger in my attic. It had a head set and you talked into it and it did what you told it. Like walk or turn or shoot these little plastic missiles haha. Anyway, I took it apart and found TONS of cool stuff, I'm just interested and wondering what everything was and what i can use

Is the board a Micro board!! can I use it!!?? what is all this other stuff....take a look thanks!

[SXRguyinMA]

I'm sure some of the stuff you could use. as far as that board goes you'd have to find a way to reprogram that chip on it to do what you want to do with it, other than that I'm not sure really

[Joey1558]

darn really wanted to use it

[Joey1558]

is there anyway to reset the chip to allow it to accept Arduino Software...

[x88x]

Well, there's definitely some useful components in there, but there are some things you should understand.

microcontrollers:
Not all ICs (Integrated Circuits) are microcontrollers. In fact, most ICs are not programmable at all. Those that are programmable require special equipment to flash (program a new firmware) and additional components to function properly once they are flashed. What makes something a microcontroller is that is has a) a processing core, b) memory, and c) programmable I/O. These three parts are what make a microcontroller relatively easy to reprogram and interact with what you want to do (motors, lights, other microcontrollers, etc). So, some of the ICs on those board might be programmable, but you would need additional equipment to flash them and who knows what they would need to be programmed in (likely C or assembly). This is why the arduino and similar are nice, because they come with all the equipment you need to make them work and they can be programmed using a more beginner-friendly language.

motors/steppers/servos:
Each has its uses, advantages, and drawbacks. In the most simple terms, a servo usually has ~340-350 degrees or so of motion, you can tell it to go to [x] degrees, and it will go there and stay there. Servos also have feedback sensors, so they know exactly where they are at any time. A stepper motor can rotate continuously if you want it to, or instead of telling to go to [x] degrees, you instead tell it to move a certain number of degrees from its current position, which it will then do...or at least as close as it can manage depending on its design. A standard motor rotates continuously, usually at much higher speeds than a stepper motor (which go a lot faster than most servos), and with much less torque than a similarly sized stepper or servo. Instead of being able to rotate a certain distance, it will just spin at whatever speed until you tell it to stop. Of course, using any of these like I've said takes a bit of additional components to send the correct signals to the device.

What you pulled out of that thing looks like a few brushed DC motors. You'll notice that for the drive belts, the motors were geared down quite significantly in order to lower the speed and raise the torque to a usable level for the required purpose. For the flaps you want to do on your case, if you want to use one of those motors, you'll need to gear it down similarly.

[billygoat333]

thanks for the informative post x88x. I learn so much just reading on here.

[Joey1558]

That was GREAT X88X, thank you for that post! exactly what I was looking for, Thank you!