Modifying the motors

Here's one of the most important steps of the build, and one of the best features of the TNY-360 : Getting feedback from the motors !

Don't worry, this step is pretty easy once explained, and we'll go through it together step by step.

Understanding the modification

Before we start, let's talk a little bit about the motors of the TNY-360.

The robot uses a total of 12 MG996R motors. These motors are called "servos" because they have a built-in feedback mechanism that allows them to know their position, and to move to a specific position when commanded.

MG996R motors are pretty common in the hobby robotics world, and are often used in projects that require a lot of torque, like robotic arms or legs. But one of their biggest downsides is that they don't provide any way to get feedback from them out of the box, which means that you can't know their position.

Getting the feedback out of the motors

Since MG996R motors (and any other position-controlled servomotor) have a built-in potentiometer that allows them to know their position, we can use this potentiometer to get feedback from the motors !

Getting the potentiometer feedback out of the motors is a bit tricky, but we'll be using the custom PCBs that we designed for the TNY-360 to do it!

If you want to learn more about this modification, check out the MG996R Feedback Mod page :)

Section overview

This section will be splitted in 2 parts :

• Soldering the PCBs
  In this part, we'll be soldering the SMD components on the custom PCBs.
• Adding the custom PCBs
  Then, we'll use the custom PCBs to modify the motors and get the feedback out of them.

All clear ? Well, let's do it !