Wanted to show ya’ll what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. I’ll preface this with that this will not be remotely exciting for 99.9% of you, but I’ve been thinking of doing this for a few years and finally got off my ass and did it!
The problem:
The OSR2+ has several electric/electronic components which all need to squeeze into the small-ish chassis.
- Power jack
- Power button
- ESP32 logic board
- Power bus
- Servo hookup
I always wished I could eliminate several of those components in an efficient and reliable way.
Those familiar with my g90ak Edition OSR2+ know that I feel that it is SUPER important to not modify the servo wires. Shortening, splicing, or removing the wires from the Dupont connector are no-nos to me since they may void servo warranties and make it difficult to return/exchange to a retailer. My solution before was to make short servo plugs coming from the power bus, but making those was time consuming and potential points of failure. Moreover, these servo hookups ARE additional wires in the OSR2+. I tried to keep them as neat as possible, but I felt like I could do better.
The dream:
I’ve seen others build custom PCBs for the SR6 and OSR2. They were often very feature rich and large - straying from my minimalist philosophy of maximizing simplicity and reliability. My ultimate desire was a low profile and minimal solution that act as a power bus and route servo signals straight to the ESP32 board and allowing servos to be plugged in directly.
The solution:
After several years of wishing someone would create one, I finally got off my ass and began to learn VERY basic PCB design. You basically choose the components you expect to use, design a schematic, and then design your PCB. After that, you send the design file to a manufacturer and a few days/weeks later, you have a PCB in your hands.
After a few weeks of going through various iterations and live prototypes, I’ve landed on a version 1.0 design of my PCB that I wanted to show off. This PCB sits directly on top of the ESP32 like a hat and does all the power and signal routing to the servo plugs at the rear.
These will be going into all of my OSR2+'s that are sold from June onwards. I want to be clear that the g90ak PCB will not improve performance, but will make for better reliability and easier servo swaps upgrades.
Look how clean this is!
And with servos installed (I wish servos had shorter cables, I do my best)
