Hello, I’m interested in buying the “Lynxmotion AL5A 4 DoF Robotic Arm SSC-32U Combo Kit”. I have a few question first regarding this product.
Does the SSC-32U supports programming in C++?
Does the FlowBotics Studio software is needed for programming in C++ or is it easier to code in C++ using the FlowBotics Studio software?
What programming languages are supported by the SSC-32U?
Does the SSC-32U and the FlowBotics software works with any robot that uses servo motors?
Thanks in advance.
Omar.
EDIT I also have the following questions:
I have a few questions that I would like to ask regarding the FlowBotics Studio software and I hope you have some time to answer me.
My question is really simple. I have a robotic arm (servo motors) and I want to control it using an Arduino board and Arduino servo shield.
Is it possible to use FlowBotics to program the robotic arm and to have a visual representation of the robot on the FlowBotics to simulate the movement ?
Is it possible to draw my robotic arm in FlowBotics or is there any libraries that help in designing the robot to be able to use it in simulation later on ?
Is it possible to code in C++/C using FlowBotics software ?
We assume you mean the RB-Lyn-841, since you mention FlowBotics Studio (FBS). Please note we also have an article about the Lynxmotion AL5 Robotic Arm series. You can find it here.
Short answer: yes!
Long answer: the language used is actually irrelevant, as long as your development platform is able to read/write to a serial port (most modern platforms can do it easily / provide abstractions for it).
You can find some examples on the Lynxmotion GitHub here.
The communication protocol for the SSC-32U is text-based (ASCII) and details can be found in the SSC-32U manual (pages 24-26).
FlowBotics Studio does not allow programming directly in C++ and is not require to do so. FBS is meant to do dataflow programming using pre-made modules and custom ones, either made of other modules or of Ruby. Please note that since FBS supports DLLs, you can also compile custom code in C++ (or other compatible languages for creating DLLs) and then use it in FBS.
See the answer two questions above.
Any platform where RC servomotors (or other devices that accept RC signals, such as these motor drivers) can be used with the SSC-32U and therefore, by extension, with FlowBotics Studio.
Yes, that is most certainly possible. But, it does not seem like you would use the SSC-32U in this case, right (since in this setup you have a servo shield)?
Yes. The AL5 Arm app bundled with FBS does this already for the AL5A/B/D already.
Adding a new “robotic arm settings’ file” is not too difficult. In the case where your arm is the same structure as the AL5 but simply different lengths, you can simple add new configuration file. You can find these files here, usually: %ProgramFiles% (x86)\RobotShop\FlowBotics\Projects\Lynxmotion. There should be 3 files ending with .fsa. Simply make a copy of one and rename it. Then, open it with any text editor and modify the lengths and angles.
If you wish to control a custom robotic, then this will be more complicated and certainly not trivial. This software can do it, but there are no tutorials for it and we can only provide limited support for such custom projects (such as basic things, using the software and concepts).
Short answer: somewhat.
Long answer: FBS allows the use of Ruby module (native Ruby interpreter included in FBS) and ASM, mostly for DSP functions. That being said, FBS can connect by serial ports, HTTP protocol and DLLs, so you can bridge it to most code-bases that are external without much issue. For C++, you would most likely make your code into a DLL and then call its functions from FBS.
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