A few questions for my robonova-1

Lynxmotion Legged Robots
1

Hi!

I got my robonova-1 a week ago, and I was mighty impressed. I will soon post a bunch of pictures that I captured during my build session!

I managed to build it error free except for switching two servos. This however was wrong in the manual, so you might want to check on that if you want to build your robonova-1…

I used page 10 in the manual as a reference and placed all servos according to this image. When trying to program the robot it would seem that servo #5 and #7 were supposed to be switched. Luckily i could just rewire them around, since I would have had to take the entire robot chest appart to switch them around…

Anyways… I have some questions!

When I am programming the robot, I would want to avoid using the battery, but rather have the robot take power from the charger, but the manual says this is not recommended. Since this is a dedicated NiMH charger it will charge at voltages above 6.0, and will have ciruits that will prevent overcharge that might get in the way. So my question is: How can I do this?

Would I be able to remove the battery and feed 6.0 VDC into the battery connector? Do you sell spare powersuplies or atlest spare connector adapters so that I can use my existing variable powersupply?

Also, I find robot basic to be pretty boring, since im used to C/C++ and the likes. Is there any chance that I could upload C programs instead of the basic stuff?

Thanks!

2

Well, I wouldn’t try messing with the charger.

You could simply do as you mentioned, and slap a regulated (be sure that it is regulated; too much noise on the servo rails will seriously mess with the PWM, at the very best) power supply onto lead wires that go to the battery.

Make sure that you unplug your battery, while you’re using the power supply.

And, don’t forget to put a fuse in the mix, just in case your servos overdraw their supply.
This shouldn’t be a frequent issue with the Robonova servos, but I wouldn’t try using a 2A supply on the Lynxmotion bipeds (bigger servos = more amperage demanded).

About the C code, I haven’t heard of anything that would do that.
If you simply prefer to write in a C language, rather than a Basic language, there might be a translator (although I doubt it).

Hope this helps.

3

Thanks for quick answers!

I will look into fuse + regulator for my power need :slight_smile:

The robot basic language has shown itself to be more limiting than what i thought initially.

One example:

'how much to shift when shifting weight
CONST shift = 10
'star pose before walk (standing still)
MOVE G24, 100, 76, 145, 93, 100, , 100, 30, 80, , , , 100, 30, 80, , , , 100, 76, 145, 93, 100,
'shift weight to left foot
MOVE G24, 100-shift, 76, 145, 93, 100+shift, , 100, 30, 80, , , , 100, 30, 80, , , , 100+shift, 76, 145, 93, 100-shift,

This will not compile because the move command doesnt handle the incredibly simple arithmetic calculations with the “shift” constant. I would have to rewrite this to use a ridicullous amount of temporary variables and/or constants and source lines!

To top this of, the controller has a limited amount of available “variable registers”, which means I have to reuse my vars to not run out if the program grows large.

It is a though they did not intend for the language to spcify parametric motion, but simply “play back” movement!

Ill definitely look into which options I have with regards to compiling C code for the controller!

4

The whole variable thing might have something to do with the limited space on the EEPROM’s of the micro.

It seems odd that they would limit it that way, though.

5

RoboBasic is very limiting. I think the best thing to do is to off-load the processing tasks to either a secondary master controller or send sensor data via a Bluetooth link to a PC and have the PC issue servo commands to the 3024 board. That’s what I’m doing now but will add an on-board Rabbit Micro.

6

Could you please tell us in more detail what you did to make this work?

Thanks!

7

I forgot to mention that I am working on avoiding RobotBasic altogether.

Anyways, I habve just sent a letter to Hitec about getting specs so that we can make programs using regular AVR tools on the controller. That means writing software in C / C++ instead of RobotBASIC…

Hopefully this will be possible…

Anyhow. I will put all on the portal once there is anything to report!

8

I wrote about it in the RoboSavvy forum robosavvy.com/modules.php?name=F … opic&t=125

9

I would just like to clairify, the robot basic disussed here is NOT associated with the FULL FEATURED and FREE language called RobotBASIC. It is very powerful and had the ability to control both simulated and real robots… see www.RobotBASIC.com for more information.