Apod newb help?

Lynxmotion Legged Robots
1

Hi all,

I just built the apod and have had many issues. This is not my first robot or lynxmotion.

  1. Ssc card install- i am looking over Jim’s build and proto pics and comapring to the pictures on the tutorial. The proto pics have a very clean wire install. The tutorial pics have you wiring the rear left knees to the front right of the card. When Jim had the ssc mounted on the top, it looks like the right side of the ssc had the right side legs wired on that side; and subsequently the code was written that way. The tutorial states to mount the on/ off switch where you can still get the serial 9 pin connector connected and not interfere with the on off switch. Ie: the 9 pin connector faces the rear of the apod; which puts the right side legs on the left side of the board… Or am I reading this wrong? When i reference the picture with the channel assignments in step 6 of the bot board tutorial, i would imagine that the serial cable faces rear and the cables will stretch as step 12 of the body states “Step 12.
    Slide the SSC-32 into place and secure it using four 4-40 x .375” hex screws. Attach the power switch to one of the outer mounting holes.** Using one of the inner ones will block the DB9 cable from being able to be plugged into the SSC-32.**"

Is this correct? Or should it face the head? If it faces the head the wires will fit easier but the power switch comment and location would be amiss?

Any advice?

  1. When programming the files are how they should be, the program compiles with no errors detected, and the bot board is programmed. My jumpers are exactly how the setup pictures are in the schematic (and wiring) below table 15-4 with one exception- i have the baud rate moved to 38.4 per the table for board communications and not 115.2 for pc.

Any advice please?
I get the beep for successful programming, i hit start on the ps2 and nothing happens. All batteries are charged and fresh. Any ideas?

2

From the begin there were many problems in the tutorials/program that now are solved and corrected…
U have to put the ssc serial port on head side…the pins orientation in the program now is correct in this way.
Baud rate is like showed in the apod tables… U’ll see that maybe ur problem is that;-)
I hope this will help u

3

Thanks! Hopefully the tutorial is updated soon, and flipping the board around will fix my issues. It seems logical that it will :slight_smile:

Will the serial cable have enough room positioned in the front? I get the feeling that all of my aligns will be out of whack now, so i will now need to re-do those.

4

U need to connect the serial cable at ssc only during the alignment of servos…so only for that operation U can put the ssc on the top of the apod frame…just provisionally…after that U can put all inside the frame ( without the cable ) …U’ll dont need to connect again the cable ( if all calibration is good ), so there is no problem if the serial port is under the servos/cables of the head;-)…

5

Agreed.

With the repositioning of the wires then it would allow me to also swing the card over to plug in if I had to on a temporary basis to do an alignment as well.

From last night at mid-night with this build on my brain, to 9am this morning, I am not totally sure if swinging it around will solve the issue. I will go through the table and channel assignments and then go from there fresh again. I just want this thing to work. Maybe it is the lack of sleep setting in and messing with me :laughing:

Here is to luck and that it works. I will keep you all posted on this (in case anyone is interested) and appreciate the help. :smiley:

6

So, i verified the table 15-4 With figure 6s drawing and yhe channel assignments, they seemed to jive, so i wired everythng up per those. Which, is the same way they were before though the only change was moving the ssc biards db9 plug towards the heads rotator servo.

When i turned it on, as expected, the bit board acknowledges the ps2 controller, both red leds on the ps2 sensor boards are lit, and it will beep to acknowledge the commands i give it via remote. The robot does not snap into place when i hit start and it is in analog mode.

The ssc is in 38.2 baud rate for biard to board comms, the ds1 light blinks (until ps2 buttons are pushed and then it will extingish for the command).

I reloaded the bot board programming as is from the tutorial, got the programming success, hit start and no dice.

Anyone have any input?

7

Hi,

I just wanted to let you know I’m working on assembling the Lynxmotion A-Pod.
When it comes to the SSC-32 board I found it more logic to place it with the DB-9 serial plug pointing to the tail, or else it wouldn’t fit properly due to conflict with the head rotate servo. Also correct that the two centered holes for switches can’t be used, at least until you are finished calibrating. This mean I’ll probably use another pin-config. I’ll keep you updated when I’ve done more progress.

8

Thanks Zenta!

I have had the SSC both ways and agree that there is a tight fit for the DB9 by head servo. Its not ideal. However, if you do have it positioned to the rear, have you tried it physically? Servos 18, 26, 02, and 10 will have their wires stretched which will put stress on the pins of those servo channels on the SSC. At least when the board is flipped, like in Jim’s demo pictures (I am assuming that he had the board fit to have the…) the servo wires have slack in them (like in my previous Lynxmotion builds) for full extension.

Im going to work on this again tonight if I get the time. Has anyone else had issues with the two boards communicating or the legs not snapping into the walk position? From the tutorial, this is from a bad software load (potentially) yet I get no errors in compiling and success when loading, with the good beep when done. I dont know what else there is to do?

9

Like I said, a different orientation of the board require that the servos goes to other pins.

I’ve barely begun assembling it. At the moment I’m working on a different battery holder solution. I want to be able to replace the LiPo battery.

10

Has anyone else had these issues?

11

Hi, I had the same, and due to issues with available space I finally came to the conclusion that heading the DB9 to the tail makes more sense. This makes it possible to fiddle the RS-232 cable in the ssc-32 DB9 socket, not convinient but possible. And - it was quite often necessary to recalibrate the servos. So I changed the pins for the servos to something with less knots in the cables

phoenix_config_3dofapod.bas:
cAbdomPanPin con P30 ;Abdomen Panorate (tail side to side)
cAbdomTiltPin con P31 ;Abdomen Tilt (tail up and down)

cLFCoxaPin con P3 ;Front Left leg Hip Horizontal
cLFFemurPin con P4 ;Front Left leg Hip Vertical
cLFTibiaPin con P5 ;Front Left leg Knee

cLMCoxaPin con P6 ;Middle Left leg Hip Horizontal
cLMFemurPin con P7 ;Middle Left leg Hip Vertical
cLMTibiaPin con P8 ;Middle Left leg Knee

cLRCoxaPin con P9 ;Rear Left leg Hip Horizontal
cLRFemurPin con P10 ;Rear Left leg Hip Vertical
cLRTibiaPin con P11 ;Rear Left leg Knee

cRFCoxaPin con P18 ;Front Right leg Hip Horizontal
cRFFemurPin con P19 ;Front Right leg Hip Vertical
cRFTibiaPin con P20 ;Front Right leg Knee

cRMCoxaPin con P21 ;Middle Right leg Hip Horizontal
cRMFemurPin con P22 ;Middle Right leg Hip Vertical
cRMTibiaPin con P23 ;Middle Right leg Knee

cRRCoxaPin con P24 ;Rear Right leg Hip Horizontal
cRRFemurPin con P25 ;Rear Right leg Hip Vertical
cRRTibiaPin con P26 ;Rear Right leg Knee

that was all, no other code change was necessary.

I also tried to write some code on the bot board that works as a proxy to the SSC-32 in order to use the Bot Board’s DB9 for interfaces both cards. This was easy for short commands, I was able to type in something like “#0 P1500” in Lynxterm connected to Bot board and routing everything to the SSC-32. The generic solution failed since I didnt find something that returns the number of read characters of serin in case a timeout happens. Any hints?
So, since SSC-32 replies dont have a defined delimiter I tried a ssc-32 command specific proxy where I read the replies according to the request. Although I did that for all the commands, I never got it working for the full lynxterm functionality. I had a lot of timing issues that screwed up the uart signal and also had the “feeling” that there are ssc-32 commands used in Lynxterm that are not documented.

Afterwards, I found a simpler solution: you can solder a cable that takes the SSC-32’s TX/RX pin connected to the Bot Board and connect it to a DB9 plug. So, when you want to use lynxterm, just need to pull the servo cable that connects the SSC-32 to the Bot Board and connect it to you self-made cable. Not as elegant as the software version, but works.

12

Yes,
It makes more sense to put the db9 in tail direction…special for to recalibrate the servo in future.
Yes,the Apod original code needs to change pins assignment …but that is an easy work;-)
I plugged it in head direction coz I put same frame modification ( I didn’t remeber it the first time that i tell U ,sorry :wink:)
Maybe I don’t understand well ur problem ,U say that there is a comunication problem between ssc and bb2 ,isn’t it?..Have U check the baud rate?..in the first post U write that u have changed the baud rate setting the ssc jumper on 38.4 and not on 115.2…maybe is that the error ( 115.2 is the right setting ).
I’m not clever in this things …Zenta is the genius (he helped me too) so take it as a little …little help:-)
Angelo

13

Can you guys post your updated files here?

14

Hi, wouldnt be much of a help since I changed a lot to make it communicate with my xbee remote… but trust me, it’s easy, just change the constants below the line “;[SSC PIN NUMBERS]” in Phoenix_Config_3DOFAPod.bas.

15

Does anyone have an updated file and what they did to make this work?

I have emailed customer service many times and no replies.

Id rally like to have this cool robot working so that I can start learning more about it. Id like to have a good starting point to go off of though.

16

Hi Squirrel,

Did you ever made your A-Pod to work? I mean the BB2 -> SSC-32 issue. You see I got the same issue too. I then realized that the SSC-32 need to be updated for binary support. Did you update the firmware on your SSC-32?

I’ll soon make a review of the Lynxmotion A-Pod. I’ll also update the files (if needed). I only need to calibrate the servos before it’s ready for testing.