Heathkit Hero Jr. Restoration

This is a photo of my Hero Jr. by Heath-kit. I've taken him out of storage (since 2002) and ordered some upgrade parts from other Hero collectors on the net. One nice find was a all-in-one master cartridge that contains all of the ROMS (including BASIC) with all the programs that were available for the Hero Jr. Also upgraded the ROM to V1.6 custom Y2k and maxed the RAM to a whopping 24K. All parts purchased from www.robotworkshop.com. He now has a new battery too.

My plan is to interface a single board linux computer (Chumby Hacker Board) with wifi connected to the onboard power and serial port. Then I can control and program the Hero via remote. Right now I just got the upgrades installed and now have to go thru and calibrate all the sensors etc. Currently it works with sonar, movements and speech. I just want to get all the sensors 100 % and clean up the chassis before moving on to the Chumby mods. More to come.

For now here are some specs on the Hero Jr taken from this site:

Main Processor

Type 6808
Clock Rate 4.00 Mhz

On Board Memory:

ROM 32K (Robot Monitor)
RAM 2K

Motors:

Steppers: Dteerin - 180 degrees rotation, stepper motor
DC Motor: One Front Drive wheel

Senses:

Sound: Detects and quantifies ambient sound levels over the frequency range of 200 to 5000 Hz. Resolution is 1 part in 256. The sound sensor is essentially omnidirectional.
Light: Detects and quantifies ambient light levels over the visible spectrum. Resolution is I part in 256. Sensor reception angle is about 30 degrees.
Sonar: Ultrasonic - Polaroid type, 4" to 25-foot range.
Motion: Ultrasonic sonar detection (standard). Infrared sonar, six-array configuration (optional).

Keypad and Display

Keypad 0-9, A-F, and Reset. Each key is labeled with proper function (sing, play, poet, etc..)

Speech

Synthesized phoneme-based system. Generates 64 phonemes which can be concatenated in any combination to simulate human speech or various sound effects. Reference pitch Is hardware selectable, and instantaneously variable over four levels of inflection using software.

Power Supply

Battery:

Voltage 6V (Configured as two independent 12V systems)
Capacity 4 Ahr
Charge Rate 1.75A
Charge Time 10 hours
Operating time ?? hours typical

Charger:

Output voltage +12VDC
Output Current 780 ma
Input Voltage 120 VAC