JOURNAL

Title - DEV ROVER Author - Anirudh Sahu description - Dev Rover is your personal rover which can move on its own, it has a esp32 with a camera that helps it to idetify things and navigate through the surroundings. it can be controlled by voice commands ( with the help me MAX9814) and can be controlleed by its own web applivation. It also has a speaker which can play some cool sounds. Its also equipped with a tilted 1.3 inc Oled display which can help the developer to see and visualize things. It ill run on 3/6 LiPo battery. It has 4 dc motors controlled by L298N motor driver. It has a 3D printed body which is light weight and durable. It can be used for various purposes like surveillance, exploration, and off course to show off to your friends. created_at - 2025-06-11

Total Time - 44 Hr

June 11th: researched around the topic and created a rough schematic and PCB

3 PM IST - 6:20 PM IST Initially I started with creating a rough plan of what exactly to include in my project. As its a smart rover ill need a few dc motor a couple of servo motors and a mini computer to make it smart. So as this is my starting project I didnt really knew how to get started with the PCB designing. i used Easy EDA but still when I seareched for components There were wayy tooo many options so I was overwhelmed and confused then I selected a esp32 and a L298N I have a knowledge of physical components just the firmware is new then I made the intial connections with the esp32 but later I found that the ESP32 I was using didnt had a 5V power supply so I had to restart and find a new one which took a bit time and also I had to understand why this happened. next I created a rough pcb and a 3d view of it I'm now planning to try some other alternatives for the designing part. Total time spend 3 hr

June 12th: Started with designing the case

6 pm ist to 10 pm ist These were one of the worst hours in my journey. I started with the recommendations from others to use onshape but when I actually started I had a really hard time. first the models I imported had 300 parts so to move it to the center I had to select all which made my computer burst lol ( not literally ) then I learned about onshape it had very less tutorials also so still I managed but then again it started to lag too much. I literally couldnt think of anything else then I asked in slack so I'll start my journey with most probable fusion360 from tommorow. Todays day made me learn many things and I also have models of esp32, servo motor, dc motor, l298 motor Driver Total time spend : 4 hr

Jun 13: Continue Designing the case

4 PM IST to 7:45 PM IST So I started with downloading Fusion 360, Its definitely better then Onshape, so I knew what exactly I wanted to get started on took some time to get familier to the software then got started with the actual work, imported to models took some more time then started to create a sketch and then a plane then a surface and excruded it to make a base. wwasnt sure with the dimensions so researched online to find the right dimensions. ill continue tomorrow with the case and planning to move to the electriv circuits next

Total time spend : 3.75 Hr

Jun 14: Continue with the planning and the 3D case

6:30 PM IST to 11:30 PM IST Continued developing the model. Had some issue regarding how would the actual model look like but after exploring other ideas and designs I planned to make it in like a Box thats like a perfect robo shape lol, so I first researched for the components that ill be using and found there 3d models to import, due to budget constraint I droppeed the servo motors for the pickup thing. But I added the the mother components. Created the sketches for each model and had my case in 2 parts for top and bottom also added the screen. Took some time to seaerch online on how to do a thing but now I am familiar with the overall software so from today things will go on more fast!!!

Total Time Spend : 4 Hr

June 15: Changed the components and layout

7:15 PM IST to 11 PM IST So today I continued with the case but then after reconsideration I reselected the components required, I replaced the 0.93 inch oled with 1.3 one and added other components like a speaker and a microphone to receive audio input and I also changed the overall layout so I removed the previous bodies and components and added the new also this time I kept in mind about where exactly each component will be in the final design. Now I have included all the models that I will be using in the final rover. I made sure that the 3D model that I was using is available on Amazon or other places and have the right dimensions so that I don't face any issue later. Some models weren't available on grabcad so I surfed the web for it. Total Time Spend: 3.75 Hr

June 16: Designed the 3d structure especially for oled

I started with creating the base structure. firstly created the sketches for all components.then I worked for the oled display structure. It took a bit time but atleast I can see things turning into the model. Tommorow I'll try to complete the structure for all of the components.

Total time Spent: 3hr

June 17: Designed most of the model

Continuing the work that I did yesterday, took a bit long because first my sketch pallete disappeared asked for help but didnt found any solution both on internet and slack. Still I continued with the designing first I finished the bottom then insted of procastination I finished all sides also and added holes where ever needed, added a few holes on the base for esp and l298 Total Time Spent: 4.5 Hr

June 19: Completed the 3D model

Finished completing the 3D model, added the holes and improved some small details by taking feedbacks on slack. I will be using rgb strip around it so left a small hole near the oled stand to let the wires in Total Time Spent: 2 Hr

June 20: Finished the Case and created the BOM

added a hole for the Camera, while creating the BOM I also noticed that the esp32 was having wrong holes so fixed it also improved the holes and fixed minor issues on the suggestions from others. Creating the BOM was the most important part, for India i couldn't find any website which had all the parts so at last i used Amazon. then the issue was there were many parts which had shipping cost more then the actual part cost. some had the minimum order quantity requirements. But Overall I got everything in 80-85$ which is quite good as of what I had thought initially. Time Spent : 3 Hr

June 21: Completed the code for the rover to move

Added a web server for the rover to communicate with and implemented the logics to move Time Spent : 2.5 Hr

June 22: Completed the full Project

Implemented all the features in the code so that I have full code available when then hardware arrives, added the remaining parts. Researched about some small details that I could improve in the overall project. Written the Readme for the Project. Added some cool details in the 3D model. Created the Circuit diagram

Time Spent - 6Hr ( including 1AM 23th)

June 25: Created PCB

As Cyao told me to create a PCB I started creating the PCB, making it a big pcb would just increase its price so I tried to keep it compact. I initally started with creating my own motor driver but then when I checked the price for PCBA it was more then 5x a module so I decided to use only hand soldered items to save money on the PCB and create the pcb to make things clutter free. Time Spent - 3.5 hr

July 9-10: Started building physically

recived all the parts so I started to build the main project. couldn't get the 3d print so I planned to work on a wooden base for prototype. integrated the camera and also completed the working rover. it can move right now the main issue was that Arduino IDE sucks adn the esp32 am was getting too hot

Day 12

So now I added the PAM amplifier and speaker but the issue was I couldn't play anything so then headed to Install the sd card module with it I did everything but still it was not working Then I thought maybe it's some issue with my SD Card so I tried 3 more cards and formatted them and tried again but still it wasn't working but then U realised that how fool I am I was powering it with 3.3V when it should have been powered by 5V after doing that yess it started working So I setup that and yeah the audio system was working but was having very very very bad quality but I found some more code online to take reference and then after some long tine taking compiling I made something working, I haven't been able to get a perfect audio but it is pretty good quality now time - 7hr

Day 13

Added the camera to the main esp32. I streammed the espcam on its own server and then used it with the main Esp32 I also added a new endpoint to control the flash value then I changed the main Esp32 code to connect with the espcam server and show the data I also added slider so that I can control the led but then I realised I should also add some way to control the quality so I added another slider to control the quality of the feed. Now the main issue coming is that the espcam is shutting down after like 1-2 minutes! So, today I solved the ESP32 camera problem by finding a capacitor as I didn't have a capacitor in my BOM, but I really needed it. So I went to a shop and I asked ChatGPT which one to get. So he suggested me to get a 470 MUF or 1000 MUF. So, I went there and I preferred 1000 MUF because the bigger it is, the better it is. Like in the value-wise and it's a pretty big one. Around 35 volts, so yeah. After using that and I also got a 470 MUF for the main ESP32 also. Because it told me that it would avoid the voltage spikes. Still the esp cam had the same issue So, still it wasn't working, so I need to diagnose the main issue. To be honest, I couldn't find anything which was doing it. So I went to the internet, I searched for a few things, and then I got a Reddit thread that some user faced the same issue but with some other module, because I was fool, I was covering it with the L298 motor driver's 5V, which is 2-2 unstable. Because whenever the car moves, the voltage drops, and the ESP cam is like a current sucker, so it do need a lot of current, I guess around 500 or 600 ampere. So yeah, I used a buck converter to drop the voltage from the 3 battery pack from 12V to 5V, and used it for the power supply, and it works pretty well now. photo6102760546496530523w time - 8hr

Day 14

So now I got into another trouble that the camera and the main ESP shut down like whenever the motor started running. So it was pretty strange because yesterday it was working pretty fine. So I did some recompiling and some more testing. Externally I tested it but everything was working so I didn't know what issue came. So then I took out my voltmeter and multimeter and then when I placed it on the battery pack I came to know that the batteries are discharged. It's not 12V now it's around 7V due to which the L298 drives too much power and the ESP just shut down. So I had another issue that how would I charge the batteries. So I had no option to actually charge the batteries as I got a TP4056 but it was a 3S battery pack. So how would I even charge it. So this was a design flaw from my side. And I searched online for some of the things that could do the job but I couldn't find anything. So what I did is I just had a couple of TP4056 from the local store and some battery holders. And I have a lot of chargers at my home so I just plugged every 3 battery cell into different battery holders and charged them individually. And after that it was working really great. So yeah that was a really nightmare situation. time - 2hr

Day 15

So, today I received my PCB and when I saw the PCB, the obvious flaw that I came to notice is that I was having the wrong MCU. I was having the ESP32 with 30 pins but in the PCB it was of 38 pins and I was really screwed up because I couldn't really return it as I just opened packet of ESP32. So, yeah, I was in a really doubtful situation but I had only one choice. I first searched the internet to find any relevant resources but I couldn't find any. So, my next attempt was to manually fix this design flaw. time - 3hr

Day 16

I added everything that was left added the rgb strip, the led graph, added the eyes to the oled this was really tough because of obvious reasons that it was for that shitty 0.96 oled all the libraries so I needed to make my own for the 1.3 so It was really exhaustive learning about stuff asking gemini I also improved the overall UI of the web interfce because it was pretty shitty before

Day 17

So I started doing the final build and I;m really really tired now it was very messy everything started to stop working and then start working so I knew I am fucked up but I dont really have words for what happened it just did happened but somehow I did it and im dead now lol