turtlebot kinect mounting

Question

Hi!

I was wondering how the kinect is mounted on turtlebot as I'm trying to mount one on our Pioneer robot sporting a pan tilt unit. So I thought I could ask a quick question about that.

I can see that perhaps you drilled some holes on Kinect and used just the right screw to squeeze it in (if not how to fasten from the other part?) Or used the existing holes under air vents for the bottom part?

If you have a parts list and some quick instructions for mounting that would be most helpful.

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Originally posted by Alper Aydemir on ROS Answers with karma: 126 on 2011-04-20

Post score: 2

Answer 1

If you pull off the little vent covers on the bottom (they are just a stick on, flexible plastic), you'll expose a total of 4 screws. These screws do require a security Torx driver to remove, but once out, you can thread a standoff into them.

I believe this is what the turtlebot is using. I am using these mount holes on my robot Maxwell.

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Originally posted by fergs with karma: 13902 on 2011-04-20

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 4

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Original comments

Comment by tfoote on 2011-04-21:
This is what the TurtleBot uses.

Answer 2

It looks like the turtlebot uses custom holes drilled in the kinect (someone else could answer this better). However, I've been happy using a piece from the kinect wall mount, which includes a little snap-on piece with a standard 1/4"-20 tripod hole.

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Originally posted by Dan Lazewatsky with karma: 9115 on 2011-04-20

This answer was NOT ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 1

Answer 3

I use the four holes on the bottom of the Kinect base. I tapped them out with four small screws (don't remember if metric or SAE). Built two stacked adapter plates from plexiglass to mount to a servo panning turret (Servocity SPT-200). One plate bolts to the turret (countersunk screws), one to the Kinect (countersunk screws) and then I bolt through both plates on the outside edge to complete the mounting.

Using the Kinect base mount holes allows use of the Kinect tilt motor, which is useful as the tilt angle targets are relative to the built-in accelerometer (gravity, tilt angles are relative to a level floor). I also have a separate tilt servo for looking straight down at the arm hand position in close to the robot, as the Kinect can only angle down to about 25 degrees.

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Originally posted by Bart with karma: 856 on 2011-04-22

This answer was NOT ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 2

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Original comments

Comment by Pi Robot on 2011-04-23:
OK, thanks--I was mostly wondering if it was just mine that jiggled. I ended up taking the motor out of mine and gluing it solid. Then I just use a pair of Dynamixel AX-12 servos for pan and tilt.

Comment by Bart on 2011-04-23:
The Kinect has a friction joint for manual panning, but it stays in position during use. My 3 joint pan/tilt tree does jiggle, but settles in less than a second. When panning I use a timer to wait for it to settle in each position. A complete pan takes 3 seconds. Pan servo alignment is a challenge.

Comment by Pi Robot on 2011-04-22:
Hi Bart--I was wondering how you deal with the jiggle in the Kinect base mount. If I place mine on a table and grab the camera body, I can move the ball joint quite a bit.