ROS expanding board

I really like this controller board. It has 4 DC motor outs, so it works great for 4wd / mecanum robots. It also has pwm and serial bus servo outs, RGB LED out (for ws2812), SBUS in (for an RC receiver), and plenty of power connectors. It is controlled by USB and there are images available from Yahboom for ROS1 and ROS 2 for Raspberry and Jetson platforms. (I’m using raspberry pi). But you could plug it into a PC running linux and run ROS there and it would work. I have two of these boards now and I will probably buy more. It’s a great general purpose robot controller. One note -at the time of this review, the Yahboom ROS2 image is using ROS2-foxy. If you are on a newer ROS distribution you will have a more work to get everything running.

I bought this board as a test bed, to further my robotics education. I had attempted to use this board to run a self-balancing robot, to no avail. Also, when I hooked a raspberry pi 5 to the board, the board would not power the pi.

Great board to learn robotics. It also comes with free courses, firmware, python codes, and ROS/ROS2 codes to build a robot! The technical support is also patient and knowledgeable to provide solutions to my problems.

“Reverse current protection” is meaningless when there is nothing protecting the 5v output jack from reverse current/over voltage. This board will be used with Jetson which has a 12v jack of the same diameter. You need to add a protection circuit to prevent current from coming in via the 5v output jack

I have a similar expansion board from a robotics kit. This is a nice upgrade from that board. It can support more sensors/modules, four wheel drive, and it can also be switched to my Pi. The board itself is a solid build. Inspection of the soldered components, I don't see any major issues other than some minor alignment that shouldn't impact the connections. The board comes with hardware and standoffs to attach the controller boards. The board comes in an ESD bag within a padded envelope. The envelope provides a link to documentation of the board which is useful for setting up the boards and interfacing with your controller. Overall this is a good basic robot expansion board that combines multiple modules making it a decent value for everything you get on the board. The board is packed so you are getting a good amount of functionality in a compact foot print.

This board seems to be very well made. I don't really see any quality issues on the one I received. It has breakouts and ports for just about every sensor/input/output imaginable for a small robotics project. I haven't ran into any issues with it as of yet, and I don't really expect to. I recommend you give this a shot!