Sawppy is now back up and running with all its 3D printed parts recreated in MatterHackers PETG plastic. While the pieces could be replaced piecemeal, I decided to take everything apart and reassemble the whole thing so I could take pictures along the way and document the assembly process. Since I was basically rebuilding the rover from scratch anyway, I performed another upgrade: the compact Netgear WiFi router previously installed has been replaced with larger dual-band unit, the Asus RT-AC1200. Test drives have proven the new router gives Sawppy significantly more range!

Sawppy can now rove a decent distance from its handler. Far enough that it's no longer easy to see exactly which way the rover is pointed, and we need to occasionally refer to Sawppy's on-board camera video feed to see what's going on. In the picture below, John is holding his phone showing the video feed while Emily is on the driving controls. This picture was taken as Emily drove Sawppy back towards us. In the relatively quiet RF environment of this industrial park, Sawppy can drive about three times further away than the distance shown in the picture before wireless communication suffers occasional data dropouts.

This range test proved that Sawppy can get far enough away that driving it around becomes a team activity: one to monitor the situation and another on the controls. This is more than enough range for most of our purposes.

What's still unknown is Sawppy's tolerance of noisy RF environments. That test will come, eventually...

Sawppy Pilots