Hi, I need to control more than 32 differents servos and relays. My question is: There is any way to connect two or more
SSC32 in tandem?
You can connect two SSC-32s using two serial ports. How do you plan on sending commands to the SSC-32s?
Well, I use VSA program, that provides to control up 128 servos, with only one com-port. So, I need to control the SSC32
boards like they would be only one.
I´m sorry, I speak english very bad
Currently only 32 servos can be operated using the ssc-32 on a single serial port. I doubt that there will be further development of the ssc-32 hardware to add selectable jumpers and such to the board. Something that would be fairly easy to do to get around the single ssc-32 problem would be to make firmware upgrades available that would use other command start characters besides the #. The new start characters could be - (which I currently use to send commands in the http query_string get request), *, A, B, C, D, etc. (any character not currently used in the ssc-32 commands, and avoiding special characters). If this were available, a large number of ssc-32s could be used on a single serial port for those really big projects.
This may be possible, but it will not address the VSA software issues. Why doesn’t VSA allow more than one com port to be accessed?
It looks like at least some versions of VSA allow more than one serial port to be used. Take a look at the VSA web site’s configuration page brookshiresoftware.com/vsa_configurations.htm. There are several configurations that use multiple ports, even a combination of serial, parallel a, USB and sound ports…
Like this one:
Ok, there are many configurations in VSA. But, you can record VSA works to run them in RAPU (the brookshiresoftware brain, as a CPU). In this, there is only a serial port, because of this I need many SSC32 working as only one.
The SSC-32 is a bidirectional communication device. It accepts commands and sends replies when needed. There is simply no easy way to add daisy chaining to them. It would be easier to do if they were limited to listen only. It’s still a dead issue. Even if we made a special custom firmware for it, the Brookshire program is not going to know how to talk to it.
The below $10 chip might be an inexpensive alternative for multiservo control. It can control 16 servos, and the chips can be be daisy chained “A to Z” for lots of servos.
This is perfect!, unless you read in his post where he states he’s using Brookshire VSA software which does not support this chip!
Might be able to mux at the TTL level for several SSC-32 cards, then convert to RS-232 for the PC. You’d have to come up with a control line to select which SSC-32 to communicate with. RS-485 (multidrop) might also be a solution.
Alan KM6VV
Looks like a servo controller that can be daisy chained, and that the VSA software supports will be needed. Might make a good case for the VSA developers to incorporate used defined command structures in their software so any controllers could be used.