What kind of chip is used for the Inertial Sensor. Is it an MPU6050 because that is also a 3 axis gyro + 3 axis accelerometer and quite common chip.
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It looks like an ICM-20602 from TDK InvenSense.
If I am correct about the chip (the one marked I62 right by the hole), then it is a few levels more accurate with less noise than the MPU 6xxx series. It is popular in drone flight controllers. It has SPI and I2C interfacing, a 1Kbyte FIFO buffer to reduce bottlenecks on the serial interface, on-chip 16 bit ADCs, a digital temp sensor (useful to correct for MEMS gyro drift) etc.
Inside the box, the IMU chip talks to an LPC82x (the big chip marked NXP) which is an ARM Cortex M0, a 32 bit microcontroller. I’m assuming there is firmware in there for the interfacing with the brain and/or to do integration for the gyro in order to spit out angle values (quaternion) to VEXos.
The TI chip marked VP1782 is a RS-485 transceiver, it is what allows all the V5 “smart” parts to communicate with each other, it effectively creates a 2 wire (well, 4 actually, with signal ground) serial transmission network. The same chip is present inside the brain - one for every v5 port - and inside every “smart” device like the radio, the motors, the vision sensor and now the inertial sensor. The RS-485 chip is notorious for being super sensitive to ESD (electrostatic discharge) and this is the chip that most likely blows up when a brain port dies or a motor dies (remember there is one of these at every end of a “smart” wire).
The case is incredibly strong and the 2 parts are fused together. To open it I had to break the plastic which makes all the warranty gone and the device competition illegal (but satisfied curiosity = priceless).
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This right here is a true hero. Sacrificing a sensor for the greater good
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Thank you for the picture. It seems like this is a drastic improvement to the old gyro/accel.
I agree Railgunawesome I agree