LFR using BC108 Transistors

This is a Line Following Robot and is

simplest possible electronic circuit to make your first robot. The key to
success of this Circuit is totally depended upon DC geared Motor.
Make sure, it is Geared motor. I also first ignored this, and I made
whole circuit and fixed it in the structure of the robot, and in the end the
RPM and Torque of my non-geared simple dc motors was not proper
to move robot efficiently on line. In this robot I have not used any
chaster wheel & Strip Sensor part, which are used almost in all line
followers. This make this Robot simplest Line Following Robot Ever!!
=)

Parts Required:
1. BC 108 Transistors x (2)
2. N4148 Diode x (2)
3. 1M potentiometer x (2)
4. 1K Resistors x (2)
5. Bright White LEDs x (2)
6. LDR x (2)
7. DC geared Motors x (2)
8. 9V Battery
Circuit Diagram:

Bread Board Arrangement:

One of the most disadvantage of making this circuit is that with only
transistors its difficult to control speed of motors. The most common,
efficient and reliable method of controlling motor’s speed is through
PWM(pulse width modulation) which make the transistor rapid on/off
switch. Click here to see: PWM based Line Following Robot using
three 555 timers.
Step by Step Procedure to make this Circuit:
Stripboard Version:

By taking advantage of this small and easy circuit, dont miss to make a
Strip board version. And by making this little easy solding circuit you
will be able to reduce the structure of your robot and make it precise.
Best part is, when you use these jumpers then you dont have to make
the sensor strip which is commonly made and used in LFRs. I also
added a ON/OFF switch in this strip board, so that I have to plug in and
plug out the Battery while tuning the sensitivity of LDRs. The reason I
left the space beside the circuit is for keeping the 9V battery over it =)

The motor used in this video is a simple

DC motor, I used this one just to show you the output. You
have to use the DC geared motor, like ones shown in this
figure. The reason for using DC geared motor is that, Geared
DC motors have low RPM and high Torque. And they are
commonly famous by Robot Motors =) so must Use Geared
DC motors for your first robot.

In our case, the method we are using is called as “differential

drive steering method”. It is Jerky and shaggy but still works
fine! Here is the picture taken from emicro.com which defines
this differential drive method properly.

The BC108 transistors are designed to be used in their linear

region so that the collector current passed through the DC
motors will vary according to the base current, which is
controlled by LDR+10k trimpot. And like this, DC motor will
be given current according to the light intensity received by
LDR.
The trimpot is used to adjust the DC motor speed, and N4148
is used to protect the BC108 from EMF generated by motor
inductor when it switches off.
The material in the for the track might be different for every
other roboticist. So we can always have different track’s route
by simply varrrying the 10k Trimpot
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