Hello, please help me drag my sorry self into the 21st century

Firstly, this is my first post here, so hello everybody. Nice to be here.
hm:i, What a nice place you have here, I've been reading the boards :mu:a and a half.

I had a keen interest in robotics and electronics when I was a pup and have recently rekindled my interest after recovering my old Tomy omnibot from my parents attic and deciding to make him into 'something'.

As a child, I had a pretty good handle on all the basics except transistors (they're a switch, they're 2 diodes back to back, they're amplifiers, they're little tripods for cockroach's cameras) so I would build all my memory systems or logic gates using relays.

Coming across your board I was delighted to find lots of diagrams and usefull info on H bridge circuits for motors. I've built one and it works well, so thank you.

Here's my problem. I am first going to make my omnibot a radio controlled robot and later add the computer commands via a duplicate remote. I want the omnibot to have the same movements as the original.
Forward, backwards, revolve left, revolve right. This will mean I want for switches to activate the following switches in my H bridge circuit:
Calling the switches in the left hand h S1 and S2 and in the right hand s1 and s2
Forward: S1 & s1
Backward:S2 & s2
left: S1 & s2
Right S2 and s1

My question is, is there a simple way of making 4 inputs activate those 4 combinations without slipping back into my ancient ways and using a bunch of relays.

Thanks in advance for any help.

George

is this your first robotic/microcontroller project? if so, I would do some other projects before you jump too far into robotics.

Well it's my first one in about 19 years.
I thought this was a fairly simple project. A 4 input, 4 output problem, is the solution really going to be that complicated? What would you recommend to ween me into it?

There's no rush I can play around with a few ciruits before actually applying the method to the machine.
George

Google HT12 (HT12E = encoder, HT12D = decoder). It is a 4 button encoder that can be connected to an RF transmitter/receiver combo. Whichever combination of buttons you press on the transmitter end makes the corresponding output active.

Mike.

Cheers Mike.
I think I've already got that part sorted. I've got as far as sending 6 inputs on my remote to 6 outputs on the reciever. My problem lies inbetween the output and the 2 H-bridges. I think I could probably solve it using a chip with logic gates in it but I thought there might be a simpler solution with a few diodes and a bit of thinking. I could also solve the problem using relays but, as I said, I'm trying to get away from that.

I wasn't very clear in my original post. When I said "making 4 inputs activate those 4 combinations". I was refering to the outputs in the RF combo but meant inputs as in 'inputs into the recieving circuit'.

I'm probably not expressing myself very clearly. Sorry.
George

hello
If any one is interested. I managed to solve my problem using 8 additional transistors.
George