Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!hudson.lm.com!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!calvin
From: calvin@netcom.com (John Calvin)
Subject:  More Gyro details. (Was Inertial Gyro Specs)
Message-ID: <calvinCznKqw.A9C@netcom.com>
Summary:  More on Gyros.
Keywords:  Gyros
Organization: Ceiba Engineering
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 05:04:07 GMT
Lines: 54


Greetings again.
I've had a suprising number of inquires regarding the $2.00 Gyro's I 
located in Haltek in Mountain View Ca. (Phone (415)-969-0510).  Please
be aware that these may be nothing more than $2.00 paper weights, but
its hard to say at this point.  Im busy trying to contact Bosche's 
local distributor somewhere back east to get the technical scoop on these
beauties.

On the price, well being a surplus shop the price varies depending on what
the mood of the sales person is behind the counter.  Saturday I bought
three for two bucks apiece, and went back tonight to buy some more and was
told they now cost five bucks apeice.  I jewed him down to $3.50 each which 
is still a steal.  They had a box with roughly 50 left.

Refer to my posting from Saturday for external specifications and part 
numbers. Ive done a disection of one of the modules and have the following
to report.

Disection:
As the name might indicate, these could be part of some radical automobile
suspension control system.  Here rather tight limits on pich and roll might
be ok.  
Please temper the following description, as Ive never disected anything 
like this before.

Motor & Gyro unit:  Motor looks like a standard DC motor and is about 
.75"x1.0" in size. The Flywheel (whatever is called) is attached to the
motor rotor through thin copper standoffs about .5" in lenth. The Flywheel
is basically two copper crescent shaped arrangements, which seem to mate
up close to a capacitive pickup mounted on the statinary part of the housing.
Looking at this and trying to immagine how it works, it must be limited to
1-2 degrees of angular movement.  

Electronics:
Away from the capacitive pickups we have a small PCB about 2"x2". On it we
have a 4.9 Mhz crystal (I think) and an ASIC with these markings.
FI
MLA3593B
8815

There are two op amps in the vicinity as well.

The most interesting and indistinguisable feature is a small plastic
cylinder with four stator's running up the sides. It seems to be filled
partially with oil or something and there is a smooth metalic cylinder
inside.  The back side of the PCB where its soldered says
03-1204-1115 Gyro.

Well with all this said, hopefully someone adept in Gyro mechanics will be
able to provide some meaningfull comments.

Happy gyroing.
Calvin@netcom.com
