Last of the hardware mods for the 'Bot

My wife and I just bought a new house so I have been, and/or will be, a little distracted over the coming weeks.   That said I am still making a little progress as shown by these pictures which represent what should be just about the final hardware configuration for the 'Bot.

First the an overall picture and then I will dive into some of the changes and why I have made them.

Some of the most major of the changes for this version of the 'Bot are the new RPi and case that FINALLY came after having ordered them in June.   The RPi case sits on a breadboarding platform above the Explorer PCB.   I expanded that platform a little to give some more room which pushes the RPi further to the stern of the 'Bot.   On top of the RPi is a new USB V2 Hub that seems to be helping with some of my USB issues (devices dropping offline).

 I have also made some power improvements by adding a Li-ion battery pack (2 x 3.7v 4000mAh cells) dedicated to the RPi with it's own power regulator and LED to indicate when it is on.

RPi Power Regulator

RPi Power Switch

RPi Batteries

Since I have decided to use the GPIO capabilities of the RPi to augment the Arduino (more elsewhere) I decided to bring the GPIO bus outside of the RPi and have connected it to a socket that allows me to plug and unplug the RPi when I need to lift the hood to get at the Arduino or the Explorer PCB (more on this here as well).

Finally, at the rear of the 'Bot I have added a little breadboard with an RGB LED (under the bottle cap) that I am using to signal status for the 'Bot (flashing green means all is well, a flash of blue when a command is received, SOS in red if all is not well...and of course solid on or off if the RPi has crashed).   The mini breadboard also has a reset switch for the Arduino since things have gotten croweded!