My first attempt at using the Dagu Explorer robot control board was halted as one of the motors died. But my brother had bought a tracked vehicle chasis that he could no longer use, so I transfered the electronics across.

I made a platform from the plastic base plate of a Toshiba XM-3301B CD Rom drive, cutting it to about the same length as the Explorer board, so that the corner infra-red sensors would over-hang the ends. This was a mistake! It turns out that the sensors are easily bent in collisions, and it would have been better to have them slightly behind the corner edges of the base plate. (I subsequently remade the base plate from another CDRom, and used the first one as a template, so now the sensor have some protection).

Complete Tracked Explorer

For the motors, the Explorer board uses 2 pin Molex connectors the same as found in many PC power supplies (internal plug connecting the mains wires, c0mes with high current wires attached). I modified an 8 AA cell battery pack to accommodate just 6 AA cells to provide a 7.2 to 8.4V battery for the system, found a plug (ex PC speaker I think) that matched the Explorer power jack. Strangely the Explorer board has large-pinned sockets for the outgoing power to the motors, but only a tiny battery socket through which all that power has to come!

• Explorer robot control board.

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