I welcome everyone! The designer KS0551, based on the Arduino KEYESTUDIO, fell into my hands. KEYESTUDIO is a fairly popular Chinese brand that develops educational kits related to the popular Arduino and Raspberry microcontrollers. This kit is based on a modified Arduino Uno with many sensors. A feature of the designer is the use of Ilon’s wheels, or as they are also called “Swedish wheels”, capable of any transport, not only in all possible directions, but also to drive diagonally. Assembly of the constructor takes several hours, the process itself is incredibly interesting, fun and informative, but not without nuances, which I will write about later.
The designer from Keyestudio arrives in a colorful branded box, which contains the appearance of the finished model, its main features and advantages.
The constructor is quite compactly packed in a box. In addition to all spare parts, there is a booklet listing all components and their quantity in the set. On the reverse side there is a QR code leading to a page with instructions.
In general, the complete set of the set is shown in the photo below. It is worth praising the manufacturer for putting a magnetized screwdriver, and quite good quality. However, all components are made very high quality.
In the following, the main components will be presented in more detail. The main “base” houses the main sensors, LEDs, and connectors for connection. It also houses a battery compartment designed for 18650 batteries.
The main board is made very high quality, the soldering is excellent, there are no traces of flux. This board is an analogue of the notorious Arduino Uno, with some changes: the pads with digital signals 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 and analog A0-A5 were removed and the connection interface was changed to Type-C.
In the next box, the user is greeted with an expansion board, aka Shield. In this model, it serves to conveniently connect all components. As with the main board, the workmanship is excellent.
The last box contained all the other components: remote control, ultrasonic proximity sensor HC-SR04, Bluetooth module, connectors, servo and a set of screws.
In this section, the assembly of the model was carried out, as well as some notes during assembly, which will facilitate it. Assembly begins with attaching the ultrasonic proximity sensor to the platform.
Next is fixing the servo on the same platform. Care must be taken to install the servo correctly, as shown in the photo below.
After fixing all the details on the upper platform, we move on to the lower platform. It is necessary to find a cross-shaped nozzle on the servo and 4 self-tapping screws and fix it to the platform as shown below.
Paying attention to the fact that before installing the servo on the nozzle, it is necessary to programmatically rotate exactly up to 90 °. This is done in a similar way: the servo is connected to the main board to the contact group D11, IMPORTANT observe polarity. The orange wire from the servo should be on the yellow backing, red on red, black on blue.
You should also remember to connect the controller to the computer using the supplied USB Type-C cable and launch the Arduino development environment. For the correct operation of the servo and all other components, I recommend installing the manufacturer’s libraries (link leading to the page with libraries). In the “tools” panel, the Arduino UNO board must be selected and the COM port selected. Enter the code below, compile it and, if there are no errors, upload it to the controller.
When the servo has turned at a given angle, a platform is installed on its output shaft, on which the nozzle for the servo is located and fix it all with an M2 screw.
We pass to the main base. We fix the main microcontroller on 4 racks and tighten the screws on both sides.
On the reverse side is the installation of mounts under the engine.
The engines themselves are placed on the installed mounts and connected to the nearest connectors.
Plastic clips are installed in the wheels themselves.
Next, you need to place the wheels exactly as shown in the photo. The rollers must be directed in different directions, this is necessary for the correct movement of the machine.
We return to the upper side and to the main body of the rotary part with an ultrasonic proximity sensor and a servo.
The next step is to install the expansion board into the main board.
It is also worth remembering to install the Bluetooth module. Paying attention to the fact that this module needs to be removed.when the code is loaded into the microcontroller itself, otherwise an error will pop up.
Let’s move on to connecting the ultrasonic proximity sensor. We connect the wires in the following order: VCC (sensor power) – red wire, Trig – blue, Echo – green, Gnd – black. In no case should you confuse the color of the wires and the sequence, since there is a great chance to disable the sensor.
We connect these wires to the contact pad shown below in the photo. Don’t forget to connect the servo as well.
Next, connect all the wires, according to the instructions.
For the designer to work, you will need to purchase 18650 batteries. I used one of the most capacious batteries of this format – NCR18650 from Liitokala, which is a complete analogue of the Panasonic version used in Tesla cars.
To understand the severity of the product, I checked the measurement with Xiaomi ATuMan Duka ES1 scales without batteries (470.1) and with (565.6 grams).
The finished machine looks like this:
After assembly, it is necessary to check the operability of all connected sensors. Sketches are in the cloud at this link. Briefly go through all the lessons:
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Lesson 1 – checks the performance of the LEDs located on the main body
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Lesson 2 – performs similar actions from the last lesson, but with LEDs located on the back side
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Lesson 3 – smoothly rotates the position of the servo from 0 to 180 degrees, and vice versa.
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Lesson 4 – checks the performance of all 4 engines
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Lessons 5 and 6 – setting up and the firmware itself for moving the machine along the black line
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Lesson 7 – checking the operation of the ultrasonic proximity sensor (the distance to the nearest object is displayed in the port monitor)
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Lesson 8 – the car will follow the object in front, stand or back, you can set the distance yourself
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Lesson 9 – avoiding obstacles using an ultrasonic proximity sensor and a servo. The car “looks” for the shortest way to go around the obstacle and goes around it
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Lessons 10 and 11 – remote control of the robot through the remote control
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Lesson 12 – remote control of the robot through an application on a smartphone. Unfortunately, I can’t check, because the smartphone flatly refuses to connect to the machine.
Below is an example of how a car is able to move because of its wheels. The machine was controlled through the control panel.
As was the case with past designer from KEYESTUDIO, who have been in my hands, this set is able to entertain the family for more than one evening. I have practically no comments on the set itself: all the details are of excellent quality, the instructions are also very detailed, with step-by-step illustration (evens out the fact that it is in English). But I cannot help but note that the robot did not connect to the smartphone application, which slightly spoiled the extremely positive impression of this constructor. Is it possible to do without the app? Of course, almost all the declared functions work with the control panel included in the kit. This set is a great gift for your child / husband / brother / father-in-law / father or girls with a technical approach. The constructor will give an understanding of how the program works and teach you the basics of programming. Can I recommend this set for purchase? Of course, I had a lot of fun with the build process and customization.
Buy this kit with a designer KEYESTUDIO KS0551 you can in the official KEYESTUDIO store, and given the biggest sale this year, the price will be a little nicer.
In addition, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the collections of similar sets:
- 10 programmable electronic kits from Aliexpress
- 10 electronic designers on Arduino from Aliexpress
Thank you for your attention.