Just bought flowbotics studio, doesn't work with AL5D, the free FlowArm PLTW 4 and RIOS 32 do

[ncostes]

Hi!

I require your help regarding a problem I’m encountering.

Description: Just bought flowbotics studio, loaded the AL5 project, ran it, set to AL5D arm, correct com port (same as in FlowArm PLTW 4 and RIOS) - there’s no place to set the baud rate though, and on FlowArm PLTW 4 have to set it to 115,200 - it won’t talk to the arm.

Hardware concerned: SSC-32 and AL5D

Software concerned: Flowbotics Studio

Troubleshooting steps already taken: The com port is set correctly (COM5 in this case) - works fine with the free version FlowArm PLTW 4 and with lynxterm and with RIOS 32. I don’t see how to set the baud rate in the flowbotics project unlike the FlowARm PLTW 4. Also I tried to load the schematic for the flowarm pltw 4 into flowbotics but it says the sketch was made with a newer version and sends me to a URL that doesn’t have updates.

Additional information: We’re doing a demo for a diversity STEM event for 2-8th grades tomorrow, i want them to move the arm w/the PS2 controller, but the mappings in flowarm PLTW 4 are kind of bad (rotate base is revered) and there are no joint limits set so the arm can crash into itself and the table. I was hoping to use flowbotics studio to just load the PLTW 4 project and hopefully reverse the base rotation buttons on the PS2 controller, and impose joint limits to avoid damage to the arm. If you guys have a tutorial on that that’d be great. But first step is for the flowbotics project to talk to the arm.

I did set the baud rate on the COM5 port in dev mgr to 115200 to see if that would help since the flowbotics project doesn’t let you set it but it didn’t help.

EDIT: I set the jumpers to 9600 bps on the SSC 32 and it works. Would still like to know how to set the baud rate in this project.

EDIT: Found this link for how to change the baud rate, I just changed all 3 inputs to 115200, I don’t really know how to use flowbotics.

FlowBotics Studio v2.0.3 not finding AL5D

Hi Greg, Do you have your gripper servo plugged into SSC-32 output 4 and your wrist servo plugged into output 5? If so they should work automatically… Please let us know if that’s not the case. For the baud rate, there are a few things you can do. If you use the Bluetooth mode, the baud will be adjusted to 9600 (that’s the only thing that Bluetooth mode does for now). If you want a rate besides 9600 and 115,200 kbps, then you’ll have to edit the project to set your custom rate. You can go …

Thank you so much in advance for your help!

[scharette]

Hey,

Please find answers below to your questions and comments:

@ncostes

there’s no place to set the baud rate though, and on FlowArm PLTW 4 have to set it to 115,200 - it won’t talk to the arm.

Indeed, there is no way to directly set an arbitrary baud rate. That being said, the regular AL5 app in FlowBotics Studio (as you’ve discovered in the code) has two settings for baud rate: 9600 and 115200. When the Bluetooth icon is turned on, it works at 9600 (since that is the default baud rate of those modules). When that icon is turned off (toggled by a click on it), the baud rate becomes 115200, which should work with your arm.

@ncostes

I did set the baud rate on the COM5 port in dev mgr to 115200 to see if that would help since the flowbotics project doesn’t let you set it but it didn’t help.

That setting in Windows is for the most part cosmetic only since it does not force a baud rate on either the device driver or the application.

@ncostes

EDIT: I set the jumpers to 9600 bps on the SSC 32 and it works. Would still like to know how to set the baud rate in this project.

See the answer above concerning using the “Bluetooth icon” to change to 115200 baud rate.

@ncostes

EDIT: Found this link for how to change the baud rate, I just changed all 3 inputs to 115200, I don’t really know how to use flowbotics.

FlowBotics Studio v2.0.3 not finding AL5D Apps & Software

See answer above. No changes should be required to go into 115200 baud rate.

@ncostes

hopefully reverse the base rotation buttons on the PS2 controller,

To change which buttons or joystick does what, you’ll need to edit the schematic and browse to User Programming. It is found inside the ArmControl module at the top left corner. See an image below showing the browsing:

Use the modules connected to the PS2 Controller module as examples to understand how the signals propagate to the controller of the arm.

@ncostes

and impose joint limits to avoid damage to the arm

This change is less trivial, since the “controller” of the arm is spread of many modules and was not built to support such limits. You’ll basically need to change how the IK performs its calculation since certain joint positions are valid in some cases (placement of the arm) and not in others.
You’ll need to browse through quite a bit to get a grasp of which part does what to add such limits. A good tip is that you can follow where wireless signals go by selecting one and pressing TAB. Each press will bring you to one place where the signal is found, cycling back to the first one when the last one is reached.
ex: selecting the RobotData wireless link at the top left of the User Programming module and pressing TAB should lead you to other places where it is used, such as a small module controlling the ToggleLock function.
A good place to start looking for a potential host for such changes would be the Arm and LM SC-32 + Comport modules since they control the changes in the arm and the data sent to a SSC-32/SSC-32U, respectively. Both are found inside the ArmControl module. We wil certainly consider as a potential feature to implement in FlowArm.

We hope this information helps.

Sincerely,