Hi,
So I obtained all my parts for my Phoenix walker
Botboard, Atom Pro, Ssc-32, 18 silly servos :\
going to pick up a usb-serial converter today, and a 7.2volt batttery pack or 6 individual cells and make my own pack “probably the best idea” and a charger.
what all do I really need to start using everyone’s code here?
also what really do i need to center all my servo’s on the phoenix ? lynxterm?
–Aaron
With any software I would really like to try it before I buy it…
Thanks again.
It is not recommended you use/make a 6-cell 7.2V pack.
A 5-cell 6V pack will not eat up your silly servos and spit them out. 
Unless you know how to make a battery pack capable of working at 8 to 10A it is not recommended you make your own pack. Small wires and cheap plastic battery holders are going to seriously fluster any efforts you make.
Search the site for information on which USB-to-Serial converters work and which people have problems with. They are not all equal… far from it.
The programming editor for the BAP (basic atom pro) is a download from basicmicro, there’a thread under their topic here with the current version (8.0.1.8 or something similar… search it out.)
The lynxterm program is a free download from lynxmotion and it will allow you to send commands to the ssc-32, in particular the ALL 1500ms which should help you center the servos according to the tutorials.
Humm’s look’s like I’ll either have to take apart this 6 cell pack and take a cell out or return it for a 5 cell pack
*Edit
Was there any sort of easy schematic for getting 6volts from a 7.2volt pack? obviously without taking out an additional cell?
the cell’s I picked up were a 4400Mah pack so thinking about getting the same rating just with 5 cell’s.
–Aaron
In the short term you can go to Radio Shack and get the diodes below, put two in series in your servo power, and drop the 7.2v down to 5.8v.
That’s pretty cheep zoomkat!
I think I’ll just go ahead and get a 5 cell pack and end it… gotta love the .5 volt drop across a diode, if you got enough of them you can just about drop down 120volts ac to it!.. well and get a 30hz 6volt pulse output which would be completely useless although quite funny.
Unless you plan to power boards like the ssc-32 with a seperate power source, it might be beneficial to stick with the 7.2v power battery.
Actually no,
The idea was to use 1 battery pack for logic/servo’s.
I just got done ripping apart a computer power supply and actually going to go make it a bench top voltage supply with a clear acrylic case “for ***** and grins of course”
anyway I have the +5 coming off it to my SSC32 but it appears when you plug in the 13th servo the SSC32 becomes ****** off, guessing voltage drop is just enough to make it unresponsive… either way…
Actually I was looking online at a couple battery supplier’s and it appears that they have Sub C style batteries all the way up to 6000Mah… so I’m guessing I could make a pretty nice battery pack with 5 of these cell’s
… I don’t know Id really like to avoid having a stupid 9 volt battery dangling off the side of this thing and stick with 5 sub C style batteries in some custom slick beans pack i’ll make, and they are around 4-11 bucks a cell for these high high current cell’s
I’m really not sure what to use for a battery pack for my Phoenix rather then 5 of these C style batteries… and not break the bank…
For now I believe I will run a like 15 foot power cord to it and power it from something here…
–Aaron
*edit – You happen to know how high of an 'Mah" sub C style battery they sell? “anyone really”
and edit again…
Looks Like Im going to pick up 5 of these turds
batteryjunction.com/tenergy-sub-c-4700.html hope they work good!
Looks like the main question you had was overlooked.
You need to get the Basic Atom Pro IDE 8.0.1.8 from the Basic Micro website. All of our Phoenix code is for the Atom Pro 28 processor.
In order to center the servos in the SSC-32’s registers you will need LynxTerm. The instructions are included in the Phoenix tutorial.
So there is no cost…
Hey thanks,
I think I found something interesting with the SSC32/5volt supply and 6-475/6-645 servos
when I started to assemble the phoenix I had 6 475 servos on the inner most part of the body, then 6 of 645 servos on the external part, femur? the other ones were on the coxis part…
anyway 12 servo’s were connected to the ssc32 powered by +5volt off a computer power supply got lynxterm center’d all the servo’s and got that part put together when I plugged in the 13th servo the rest of the servo’s appeared to go limp, the ssc32 still communicated with the servo’s but would only go to center position for a split second then go back limp again…
If I had to guess that 13th servo put such a load on it the ssc32 cant communicate over serial anymore due to such a high current draw over the +5 line… lets just say If I had a way of getting 6 volts out of my power supply I would have done it by now…
I’ll unplug a bunch of servo’s and see what happens next…
This thing is much bigger then I expected heh Very cool!
you ever think about making this out of some carbon fiber? or maybe a less expensive version such as ABS plastic or Acrylic?
I remember the older yellow robots you had a couple years ago…
anyway.
–Aaron
Your PC power supply (should) be able to power up the entire robot without the SSC-32 resetting. What I suspect is going on is the wire used is not heavy enough and the wire itself or connections along the way are dropping a little voltage. This will drop the voltage going into the SSC-32’s voltage regulator below the minimum required for the SSC-32.
Carbon fiber is too expensive and has it’s own mechanical limitations for things like this. ABS would have to be machined or injection molded. It doesn’t laser cleanly. Acrylic is too brittle and would shatter if stressed. We use aluminum and laser cut lexan because they offer the most suitable strength and low cost.
I see
One thing I noticed when I received my Phoenix kit was how un smooth the edges were on every single piece of aluminum bar or cut piece had these weird edges… Is this normal?
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/5194/legqj9.jpg
It almost looked like they were cut with 40 grit sandpaper Just curious if this is how all of them are?
–Aaron
Those parts were cut on a waterjet machine. That is how all of the parts from the first run look. Is it a problem? Looks ruff on your 400x magnification. 
OH no, just me whining 
I would have assumed water jet cut parts would be smoother then CNC cut pieces or look as high quality as the servo bracket pair’s
–Aaron
I would guess that the servo brackets are done with a sheer or punch.
Water-jet cutters are awesome, they go through 1/2" steel plate like a hot knife through butter, but I have neever been of the opinion they were a precision cutting device.
Humm…interesting then well id imagine if the thing shot marsh mellows from a computer that was designed to cut holes in a piece of graham cracker I would imagine it could be calibrated to have some form of accuracy!
A water jet able to cut through 1/2" of steel plate, I often wonder how on earth the nozzle is able to hold up without wearing out in micro seconds.
As for the question asked whether it’s normal to have rough edges: depending on the process used, there are going to be tool marks, each unique to the process used. It’s normal to have all sorts of tool marks on metal components. 
The finish on the parts is really good. You should have seen them before the anodizing! Careful what you ask for though. If the edge were like you described it would be very sharp.
Waterjet cutting solves issues that arise from localized heating of the metal surface where the cut is made using some other methods.
