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Showing 1 of 3 conversations about:
Dan.R
2
May 9, 2017
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This looks oddly identical (sans fancy plastic) as the Neato Botvac navigation. This is something that's been lauded as being an incredibly cost-effective lidar system. But you can get one of those as a vaccuum, and modify it with wifi to remotely run around and make maps for less than this :/
Tex-Arozzi
5852
Arozzi
May 9, 2017
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Dan.RWhile that is a lesser expensive and much more time consuming process to get a Lidar for a project the laser units inside of robotic vacuums could in no way stand up to this unit. They are not in the same ballpark.
Dan.R
2
May 10, 2017
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Tex-ArozziYou get an entire motorized wireless mapping tool for that price, and it might even be a similar (albeit lower spec'd) part number!
10hz -sample- scan rate and 6m range sounds pretty similar, what makes this "not in the same ballpark"? What is it that justifies such a high price?
Edit: Clarification, according to http://hackaday.com/2016/01/22/how-to-use-lidar-with-the-raspberry-pi/ Sample rate 360x5hz (1800/second) so the neato lidar is a little less than half the data of the rplidar
Edit: Clarification, according to http://hackaday.com/2016/01/22/how-to-use-lidar-with-the-raspberry-pi/ Sample rate 360x5hz (1800/second) so the neato lidar is a little less than half the data of the rplidar
leftsquarebracket
6
Jun 12, 2017
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Dan.RI'd be inclined to think those specs are from the previous generation of Neato LIDAR from the XV-11 vacuums which was repackaged as the first version of the Seeed RPLIDAR, as that HaD article seems to have an XV-11 LIDAR in it rather than one from a Botvac. The XV-11 has an almost egg-shaped mount, whereas the Botvac's is much more irregular:
XV-11: https://www.sparkfun.com/images/newsimages/XV11Teardown/TheGoodStuffMasked.jpg Botvac: http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxNDcz/z/bCwAAOSw5UZY91J8/$_35.JPG
Since this is the RPLIDAR A2, It probably is the same or similar guts from the newer Botvac. The sensor itself is pretty similar between the XV-11 and Botvac, but the rest of the guts are different and could account for the bump in performance. For physical differences, the XV-11 units use a slip ring for power and data, whereas Botvac units use a coil to transfer power and a bi-directional IR link to communicate data. Here's a hardware comparison between the two: http://blog.avrnoob.com/2015/09/neato-botvac-lidar-repair-part-2-lidar.html
It looks like the premium for the RPLIDAR is the custom enclosure (and possibly a custom driver board with a power supply coil and IR interface) that gets you to a plug-and-play solution that you can use with whatever platform you want (like a compact platform running ROS, or a drone, or whatever). Seeed's offering looks a bit more compact than a pulled unit as well.
XV-11: https://www.sparkfun.com/images/newsimages/XV11Teardown/TheGoodStuffMasked.jpg Botvac: http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxNDcz/z/bCwAAOSw5UZY91J8/$_35.JPG
Since this is the RPLIDAR A2, It probably is the same or similar guts from the newer Botvac. The sensor itself is pretty similar between the XV-11 and Botvac, but the rest of the guts are different and could account for the bump in performance. For physical differences, the XV-11 units use a slip ring for power and data, whereas Botvac units use a coil to transfer power and a bi-directional IR link to communicate data. Here's a hardware comparison between the two: http://blog.avrnoob.com/2015/09/neato-botvac-lidar-repair-part-2-lidar.html
It looks like the premium for the RPLIDAR is the custom enclosure (and possibly a custom driver board with a power supply coil and IR interface) that gets you to a plug-and-play solution that you can use with whatever platform you want (like a compact platform running ROS, or a drone, or whatever). Seeed's offering looks a bit more compact than a pulled unit as well.
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