I’ve just come across a number of old (i’m guessing 8-10 yrs or so)lynxmotion arms in a box at school. They use 6 hitec HS-300 servos and have a cable actuated grip. The control board carries a PIC16C620-20/P chip and has a ‘board code’ which says “milinet 81977-683665 Servo8.pcb”.
What are they (Model etc)?
Will the modern software work on this arm?
If not can the board be changed to allow the latest softaware to control these arms?
What sort of software were they originally controlled by (there was none with the arms)?
Anyways, yes as long as the servos are standard Hitec and you upgrade the old electronics to the new SSC-32 or ABB (or both) they can be programmed using the latest tech/ programming languages and programs. They should work just as they should have 10 years ago, only better with the latests electronics.
Im not sure they are worth upgrading with the HS-300 servos (if thats what they use) but you could ugrade to better servos such as the HS-475 which are reasonably priced.
not sure what model they are since Ive only known Lynxmotion for the last 3 years…
old programs? no clue…
worth upgrading if you put the money into it? yes, keep the chassis’, upgrade the servos and electronics or ship em over here if your not using em! I like a challenge 8)
That sounds like the original 5 Axis Arm. What became the L5. Yes the RIOS will work if you get the SSC-32 servo controller. They used a program called RoboMotion. But it’s not likely to even install on newer machines.
Thanks to both Italian _Guy299 and Robot Dude for your replies. I’ve ordered a SSC-32 controller and the sequencer software to try on my old 5-axis arms. Also got an upgraded grabber (the old one does’nt release very well - cable operated).
I know you mentioned the RIOS software, but this comes as part of the new 6_axis (rotating wrist) arm kit … which I just couldn’t resist !!!
Thanks again
I use this device and it is very useful to test servos and other stuff (if you have a serial port available on your PC)
It controls up to 8 servos.
It uses a RS232 interface (9600,8,n,1, none) and it only receives command, there is no answer (there is even no connection of the TX pin of that board to the PIC controller)
A cable with 2 wires is sufficient; pin5 for GND and pin 3 RX of the DSUB9 to transmit data to the board.
I use a cable which shortcuts pin6-1 and pin8-9 in the connector on the other side and connects only pin3 (resp. pin2) and GND (pin5).
The protocol (as far as i read it from my code) is a 3 byte protocol:
1: 0xff
2: 0x00-0x07 channel
3: 0x00-0xff position (0x7f is middle)
The LED is on, when you power it up. As soon as it understands a command it goes out. For every command it flashes.
Note:
1.) The device is not able to receive a constant stream of bytes. This can cause random changes in other channels, so please be careful not to send commands too fast.
2.) The pin in the middle of each servo connector is connected to 5V power supply, which can cause problems if you connect it to e.g. a motor controller which also offers power on that pin. There is a high risk to kill the 7805 chip on the board, because there is no protection diode on the pcb.
I like a challenge 8)