REVIEW
PiCar-V Kit V2.0 SunFounder
SPECS ELECTRONICS: Robot HAT with PCF8591 ADC chip, PCA9685 PWM driver, TRA9118A motor driver
POWER:
18650 battery holder
MOTORS:
SF006C servo motors, F130SA11200-38 V DC gear motors
magpi.cc/picarv
£100 / $115
This detailed robot car build will put your assembly skills to the test. By Lucy Hattersley
W
e love a good robot here at The MagPi magazine, and we’ve tested out dozens of builds. With its smart looks, front-steering mechanism, and camera mount, SunFounder’s PiCar-V grabbed our attention. We just had to review it. It comes in at a reasonable price, too. It seems that the £100/$115 mark is a good entry point for a bring-your-own Raspberry Pi robot kit. This build offers a lot of components for the money. Many robots use the two wheels of a DC motor to provide tank-like steering. PiCar-V 2.0 takes things up a gear with an additional servo motor to steer the front wheels via a rack mechanism (called the Servo Linkage Plate). A further two servos provide a pan-and-tilt mechanism for the included USB webcam (not an official Raspberry Pi Camera Module, unfortunately).
The kit contains a huge array of components to assemble
You have to bring your own Raspberry Pi board and microSD card to the table, plus two 18650 rechargeable Li-ion batteries (3.7 V) and a charger. Even so, there’s a lot here for your money.
Days to build Oh, my days, there are so many items in the box. By our count, there are 128 separate components, including four wheels, three servos, two DC motors, the chassis, battery back, three HAT boards, and a wild amount of screws, standoffs, and nuts. The very first step for each front wheel involves the wheel, a flange bearing, three connector plates, three more hex fixing plates, an M4×25 screw, and an M4 self-locking nut. Everything you need is in the box, including a screwdriver, socket wrench, and two small wrenches. Fortunately, there’s an 88-page full‑colour booklet to walk you through the build and usage. Even so. This is a taxing build. The assembly guide is available online as a PDF (magpi.cc/picarmanpdf), so why not take a good look through it to gauge your comfort factor with the build process before buying?
The final robot is good-looking, with a range of useful features to experiment with
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magpi.cc
PiCar-V Kit V2.0
