Build instructions

Step-by-step assembly of a Haller robot — mechanical, electrical, cabling — from parts to first power-on.

Photos pending. Each section has the assembly steps and checkpoints in prose form; matching photos / CAD references / time-lapses are TODO.

The build path has four passes. Each pass ends at a verifiable state you can power down at without losing progress:

Mobile base → first motor spin
Compute → Jetson booting to a usable shell
Perception → first LiDAR scan and first camera frame
Arms → both SO-101s holding a stable pose under HMI control

Skipping the BOM is fine for now — parts can be ordered while you assemble in parallel — but every step below assumes that page's parts list is on the bench.

Bolt each LK-TECH MF5010 to its motor mount, then bolt the motor mounts to the chassis plates. The two drive motors should sit symmetric about the chassis centerline at the documented wheel separation (0.34 m center-to-center — matches the URDF and motor_params.yaml; any deviation means odometry will drift).

Caster wheels go front + rear, freely rotating.

Checkpoint. Lift the chassis, give each wheel a spin by hand. No rubbing on the frame, free rotation, no axial play.

1.2 Wire the CAN bus

Both MF5010s share a single CAN bus.

Connect motor A's CANH/CANL to motor B's CANH/CANL.
Add the 120 Ω termination resistor across CANH/CANL at the far end of the bus.
Connect the bus to the CANable2 adapter's CANH/CANL.
Plug the CANable2 into the Jetson via USB (you'll see it later as /dev/haller_can).

1.3 Wire battery + E-stop

Battery (+) → main fuse → E-stop NC → switched (+) → motor power input. Battery (–) → motor ground. Common ground between motor power, the 12 V → 5 V buck, and the Jetson.

The E-stop must be on the motor power feed, not just signal. The HMI's software E-STOP zeros /cmd_vel and drops arm torque, but the hard E-stop is what protects you if either rclpy or the HMI hangs.

Checkpoint. With the E-stop pressed: zero current draw on the battery. With it released: standby current only, no motor motion (no enable signal sent yet).

1.4 First motor spin

Power up. From a USB-tethered laptop with Linux:

sudo ip link set can0 type can bitrate 1000000
sudo ip link set up can0
candump can0       # one terminal — should be silent until you poke a motor

Use the can_test.py bench script in the repo root to send a single-motor command and read its encoder. Each MF5010 has a unique ID — verify both respond.

Pass 1 done once both motors spin under CAN command with the E-stop in the loop.

Pass 2 — Compute

2.1 Mount the Jetson

The Orin Nano dev kit lives on top of the chassis with line-of-sight access to: the CSI camera flex cable, the USB hub, and a power inlet from the buck converter.

Mind the airflow direction of the dev-kit fan — don't trap it under another plate.

2.2 Flash JetPack 6

Flash a microSD or NVMe per NVIDIA's JetPack guide. Create the orin user — the systemd unit files hard-code this username.

Boot, finish first-run setup, expand the rootfs, set up Wi-Fi for the initial install only — Haller's deployment puts the Jetson on its own AP afterwards.

Checkpoint. SSH into the Jetson over your local Wi-Fi. nvidia-smi (or tegrastats on Jetson) shows the GPU.

2.3 Power from the buck converter

Cut over from the bench USB-C supply to the on-board 12 V → 5 V buck converter. Voltage at the Jetson's input must stay in spec (5 V ± 5%) under load.

Pass 3 — Perception

3.1 RPLIDAR mount + USB

Mount the A1M8 on the chassis centerline, high enough to clear the workbench/arms in its 360° scan. Plug into the Jetson's powered USB hub directly — some unpowered hubs can't drive the LiDAR's motor cleanly.

3.2 IMX219 CSI camera

Connect the IMX219 ribbon to the Jetson CSI slot, contacts down, lock the latch. Mount the camera looking forward at a slight downward pitch (matches camera_pitch: 0.0 and camera_height: 0.15 in the traversability config — adjust if you mount differently).

Enable the CSI in JetPack:

sudo /opt/nvidia/jetson-io/jetson-io.py
# Configure Jetson Nano CSI Connector → Camera IMX219-A → save → reboot

See Vision pipeline / Hardware setup for the rest.

3.3 USB webcams

Plug the wrist + base webcams into the USB hub. Confirm they enumerate:

v4l2-ctl --list-devices

Pass 3 done once ros2 topic echo /scan --once returns data and curl http://localhost:8000/cameras/base_front/snapshot returns a JPEG (this assumes the Mobile base bring-up and Jetson deployment have happened — you can defer to Pass 4 if you're building all hardware first).

Pass 4 — Arms

The two SO-101 arms are built from the TheRobotStudio/SO-ARM100 kit. Follow the upstream assembly guide for the mechanical build — that's the canonical reference for joint-by-joint assembly.

4.1 Configure motors before assembly

The Feetech STS3215 servos all ship with ID 1; you need 1–6 per arm. The SO-101 motor configuration step walks the IDs in reverse (gripper → shoulder_pan), one motor at a time. Do this before the arm is fully assembled — once motors are buried inside the kinematic chain, you can't easily get a single one on the bus alone.

4.2 Mount each arm

Bolt each SO-101 base to its arm mounting plate, then bolt the plate to the chassis. Match the kinematic conventions you'll use in hmi/backend/config.yaml — the id: right / id: left naming should reflect which side of the chassis each arm physically sits.

Cable strain relief: the Feetech daisy-chain runs from the bus adapter board (mounted near the Jetson) through the arm's base, up through each joint to the gripper. Plan slack at each joint so the cable doesn't bind through the joint's range of motion.

Run it in sim first to gain confidence on workflows without risking the hardware → MuJoCo simulation.
Deploy it as a self-starting unit so power-on Just Works → Jetson deployment.

TODO

Per-pass assembly photos.
CAD files for chassis plates, motor mounts, arm mounting plates.
A reference build video / time-lapse.
A "minimum viable Haller" path (no LiDAR, single arm) so a curious builder can validate the bring-up workflow at lower cost before committing.