TagBot 3 is a much more stable platform than TagBot 1, due mainly to the slightly larger base size and the horizontal mounting of the Arduino and shield. That has also helped to make for a tidier appearance as I was able to tuck the battery away under the boards. The chassis is, once again, 3mm thick, laser cut and stuck together with solvent. This time, however, I have also strengthened some of the joints with hot glue and that has made a big improvement to the stability of the side panels. The wheels are mounted using a pair of laser cut washers of the same thickness as the chassis panels in order to keep the moving parts away from the chassis itself. This also has the added advantage of letting the plug on the wheels sit very snugly between the wheel and the chassis with no chance of it pulling out. The mounting bolts for the wheels are too long on this version as I ran out of the slightly shorter ones I used previously so I have used 30mm bolts as a temporary fix until pay day.
The view from the rear shows the battery under the boards and the ball jockey in it's tallest build to balance up the chassis.
A word of warning, the spurious wires you can see in most of the pictures are not part of this tagbot. They are a hangover from another test setup that used a 315 MHz remote control system. The TagBots have now outgrown that as I am moving into the area of Bluetooth control instead. Unfortunately, I can think of no way to remove the stuck on board without damaging either or, more probably, both so it has to stay. Note to self, "Get two more shields".
The final icing on the cake is this video of Tagbot 3 running through some very basic commands in order to test stability. It's not very long and was made mainly for my benefit so I have simply added some titles and information to it and pushed it straight to YouTube.
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