This seemed like the closest forum to what I’m asking about.
Got a bit bored this afternoon and was looking at the Lynxmotion robot arm that I built many many years ago sitting on the shelf. Pulled it down and decided to see if LynxMotion was even still around any more…
Looks like it’s still getting by
So, things appear to have moved on a bit, but before I spend any money, I thought I’d try and rekindle my interest with what I already have, and that is an old arm from way back with a Mini-SSC controller.
So, is there any chance I can still get this to work? What software is around now that would run on XP for it?
(I did find the old software download page that even has a QBasic program I wrote back then available for download!! Don’t think that ill work now though )
I’ve got a mini-ssc II that controls a servo based pan/tilt cam. Most any programming language that can write bytes to the serial port can be used with it. I found that xp doesn’t apparently support qbasic opening a com port for input or output. You can have some very basic control of the mini-ssc II on an xp computer just by using notepad and batch files if desired.
I know QB won’t run on XP, and I’m not currently inclined to write my own at this stage. That’s why I was hoping someone could tell me in LynxTerminal or one of the other programs available for download might work.
If I decide to get back into it all then I’ll look at updating to newer components. I just need to convince myself to spend the money
I’m not aware of any new, or even current software to control the MiniSSC II. It was a cool board back in the day, but our SSC-32 blows it away with the features it has. And it’s so much cheaper. The board has the ability to store an offset so there is no longer a need to mechanically align an assembly, plus the group move feature! Where you send destination positions for as many servos as you want and add a “T” time argument so they all start and stop at the same time even if the distance they are moving is different. This group move feature make writing programs for a servo based bot extremely easy. No pressure, we’re here if you want to upgrade. 8)
The SSC-32 may be cheaper than the Mini-SSC was, but I’ve already got the Mini-SSC so the SSC-32 can’t be cheaper unless you plan to give it to me
I’ll have a think about it all then. It’s not even the money that’s the big issue here, it’s the vast quantities of time that I will want to start spending playing with it when I get it working again
)
No pressure, we’re here if you want to upgrade. 8)