It would not surprise me that some of the settings may be off a bit. I will have to play some more with it when it has a brain again Currently I stole the JR board to put into the brat. I also stole my secondary battery (1600mah 6v battery that I use for VL to use with brat and or new DIY remote. Probably need to order another one or go back to 9V, but I like having it recharageableā¦
Currently playing with DIY, my 5/8" spacers arrived yesterday so I can the right height on the sliders. But I am missing one knob. I know it (actually 2 of them) are around here someplace, but can not find them. Also my USB extension cable arrived. I had to cut some of the casing off of the connectors, but it now nicely connects to the board. Need to now drill/cut a hole in the back of the case to mount the other end into. comes with screw mounting so should work nicely, but will be a close fit. It will just barely fit between where the on/off switch is and where the case extends in for the center cover screw. But this is a different subject.
To make it possible to use shields we attempted to use right angle headers. It sort of worked, but there are several kits that the headers conflicted with mechanically, so we abandoned the idea. However if we were to make a half shield where the board does not extend to the right past the shield headers it should allow additional shields to be added.
This board will be very small, 2" x 2.3" and could be made into a breadboard, or hold some simple commonly requested circuitry. Any ideas?
As our first real shield we should avoid using I/O pins that common shields already use, such as Xbee. Is there any sort of rules or governing party for I/O pins usage?
As I mentioned, I know I had some more slider knobs, but could not find them. So I ordered 4 new ones. They were out of black so they are gray as well. I also ordered some new standoffs from Mouser that work better than the ones I ordered earlier from Digi-key. They are M3x16mm Hex ā¦
Did you send some of the built V.2 boards? I have not seen them yet, nor any shipping notifications.
Yep I can look at the silkscreen.
Will Change to VS=VL as requested.
Likewise for version number.
the PcbFabEx they add on them self so, should not be an issueā¦
I will make the changes and them upload a zip file with all of the Gerber files.
Small Shield? My first idea was XBee, preferably one that was configurable to other IO pins. Some of the current default to use pins 0,1 which are the hardware serial port which is also used by USB. Would be nice to be able to configure to other pins.
Some other ideas:
a) As you mentioned simple breadboard.
b) Stuff to support DIY XBee and/or RC. Things like: additional AtoD, maybe through MUX. Maybe some Keypad support so it does not take 8 IO pinsā¦
c) RC receiverā¦ Where you can receive all N channels from a receiver and maybe have it talk I2C or the like to the main processorā¦
d) random stuff, like RTC, more USARTS?
I thought we shipped one, but I was wrong. Iām taking care of it right now. Sorryā¦
Good list. Iām also thinking Xbee.
On the DIY remote, I still think a one board solution would be best as it can be as large as necessary and it would be thin as no need to put a shield on top of the board.
Not intending to get too sidetracked, but would the mega be required for the DIY as far as processing goes? We can add an analog multiplexer to get more channels.
Another Idea would be some form of Motor Controller, with or without Encoder support.
The processing power of the Mega and non-mega is more or less the same as the both have similar instruction sets and the like. The differences are the number of IOs, Usarts, PWM, ā¦ and of course memory (both program space and data space, which may be the limiting factor)
Also included is a zip file with the updated gerber files, plus the the Diptrace files, plus I think a complete materials list. I may have changed the board design slightly since the .2 version to fix the pad layout for the diode. Let me know what you think, or if you need/want anything else
SD card socket (standard, mini, micro) and appropriate level shifters, etc. There is an Arduino library for SD. It is difficult for hobbiests to roll their own due to SMT parts and level shifting requirements, but many would find the storage useful.
I/O expansion (I2C or otherwise)
Coprocessor with additional I/Os. Maybe these I/Os could be placed on the board such they can be right angle without interference. The coprocessor could provide additional analog inputs, additional PWM outputs, timing inputs, encoder inputs, servo outputs, etc. Offload that timing-critical stuff from the main processor.
I am thinking that it would be nice to have a Rover that works with the Botboarduino when it arrives. Should not be hard, but then I wonder about the best way to drive the motors.
Obviously the easiest thing would be to continue to use the Sabertooth or the RoboClaw as I could choose to generate PWM or serialā¦ But then I wondered if when in Rome do whatā¦ That is maybe should use an Arduino Motor shield.
So I started to look into this. I purchased a cheap one made by NKCElectronics and sold by Amazon.com: amazon.com/Motor-control-shi ā¦ _rhf_p_t_2
Note: there are several versions of this same design out there. However I donāt think it will work for us. I could not any hard specs on it but I think it only handles .6amp per motorā¦ Also it uses the VIN power that goes into the Arduino. On our board, this would be the VServo power. So if you wanted 12V for a motor that implies your servo voltages would also be 12V. So I donāt think this one will work.
There is also a shield by Adafruit (ladyada.net/make/mshield/) that I also believe can not handle the powerā¦ .6amp per bridge
Sparkfun makes a couple: sparkfun.com/products/9815 - Uses some of the IO pins that we use, handles 2amp, but again uses power through the VIN of the Arduino board.
sparkfun.com/products/10182 - I think this one could handle it but it is $80. Some of the comments on this product thought it was a rip off as it is only 2 $10 chips and few extra thingsā¦
Judging from this info it looks like the Sabertooth is the way to go, until we have our own suite of shields. I really think the Arduino is the future for Lynxmotion. As soon as I receive my sample botboarduino board we can begin working on finalizing the mega shield.
I have been playing around with the Rover and had it working OK with the Roboclaw in Serial Packet mode. But then I did something and I think the Botboarduino has stopped working. I think I shorted out a +5v servo output pin at one point before this, so that is probably related. I have unplugged everything from the board and it does not wish to talk at all over the serial port. Before I undid everything, the PS2 appeared with both LEDS lit up even if I did not have the PS2 controller turned on.
I know that at least some of the USB is still somewhat working as, my computer knows when I plug it in or remove itā¦ I have checked that the VServo pins have the +6v and the +5v have 5.02V so I think the voltage regulator is working. I may have to dig out the AVR programmer or the like and see if I can talk to it. Or I think we are setup to use the FTDI to bitbangā¦
Update: The Atmega328 appears to be toast. Also the PS2 receiver as well was toast.
I pulled the chip out of this board and put it into the Beta 1 board and it did not work at all. So I put it back in and then tried to install a new bootloader with Olimex burner and it failed. I stole the Atmega chip from my Arduino Uno board and installed it into our board and was able to use the Olimex to install appropriate bootloader using the Arduino IDEā¦ I was able to then upload the program again. Tried plugging PS2 receiver back in and it would not talk and both lights were solid onā¦ Store PS2 from Phoenix and it can now talkā¦ Now need to continue to plug things back inā¦
Have 5 Atmega328P chips on order. Probably need to get a few PS2 controllersā¦
OK, I now have the rover code working pretty well on the Botboarduino. Currently I am using a Roboclaw on my Tri-track with a PS2. This code was based on a stripped down version of the Rover with Arm code that was done earlier by Xan, which I hacked up. I am not using Arm on this Rover but I do have the code working with a Pan and Tilt.
The code can be configured to run in PWM mode or in Packet Serial mode. Both of these modes should also be compatible with the Sabertooth 2x15 and the PWM mode should work on the Sabertooth 2x15 RC. Have not tried it, but I do have an old 2x10 which I could try if need beā¦
Right now I think the PWM/RC mode runs smoother on the Botboarduino as the Packet Serial mode uses SoftwareSerial to talk to the controller board, which works fine at 19200, but the SoftwareSerial class disables interrupts while it is outputting (or inputting) a byte, which makes sure that the data gets out there properly, but this causes the servo code to not be able to process interrupts, so you may get delays in the servo pulsesā¦ Always a trade off.
But the Packet Serial mode has advantages on the Roboclaw in that you can then use the encodersā¦
I uploaded the current code, in case anyone wishes to play with it. My guess is you would like me to hold off uploading it to main threads until you get the new boards.
Currently I stole the JR board to put into the brat. I also stole my secondary battery (1600mah 6v battery that I use for VL to use with brat and or new DIY remote. Probably need to order another one or go back to 9V, but I like having it recharageableā¦
-and later will come the Mega.
