They are really cheaply made. I wish there was something better out there. 
Maybe a software smoothing of the values would help? I wonder how much of that is going on in the games programming? Cause the Sony brand ones are are even worse then the 3rd party ones.
Good point Jim. Actually, in the XBee control file I do use a “smooth control” function when doing body rotation combined with walking. I’ll try that for the PS2 all the time to see if that helps.
Hi Kåre,
Glad you got it up and running (even if it is a bit spastic…), wish I could help more, but not sure what I can do to help here.
Kurt
Thats fine Kurt. You helped alot by giving me a little kickstart. I’ll continue my work and keep you updated. 
Hi,
I’ve got some free hours in my Christmas vacation. Most of the A-pod code are soon to be ready for PS-2 control, I’ve to do some tests first (don’t have my robots with me…).
The part I’ve not done anything with so far is the mandible control. We need to find an easy way to calibrate the mandible servos. I’m using codeoffset for them too, I defined the position where they touch each-other. Maybe that could be the center (1500) position? Suggestions?
Jim/James, did you calibrate your A-Pod? I believe the legs, head and abdomen(tail) shouldn’t be a problem to calibrate. But just to be sure how did you calibrate the head? I mean where do we define the center position. On my A-Pod the head is calibrated looking strait forward.
I’ll be home alone (!! lots of robot time 
) for some days next weekend and will upload the code.
Hi Kåre!
James knows the answers here. He’s on vacation but I will see if he can chat with you so you aren’t on your own. It will be cool to get this guy going! Thank you for your support.
Sounds great. Will be fun to see a real A-Pod running around…
Kurt
Zenta: I haven’t calibrated the head or abdomen yet. I wasn’t sure how you had done it, and there wasn’t code at the time, so I didn’t bother.
I believe I wired it up like the Phoenix, but I can’t be too sure. It’s easy enough to change that later though if we need to.
Hi James,
Yes, mine A-Pod does also has the same pin config on the legs like Phoenix. (Kurts config was like T-Hex). The main difference is that A-pod use 45 deg coxaoffset (like T-hex), not 60 like phoenix.
I’ll post a picture (when I’m home again) of how A-Pod should look like with calibrated head and tail.
Have to go… (our kid need a new diaper 
).
Hi Jim, James and others,
Happy New Year!!
I’ve been busy lately working on the A-Pod PS2 code.
I thought it was easier to just shoot a video for you. But after hearing myself I’m not sure if it was…
Anyway, what I forgot to mention was that I’m thinking of leaving out the GP and single leg mode. So that we can use the cross and circle buttons for direct mandible control instead.
Any comments?
I was close to give up on this because the direct control in rotation mode was nothing but terrible. I could have a select/toogle option so that you can move from direct to indirect control in the rotation mode, but honestly I don’t see the point of it…
It would be great if you could start testing this code on yours A-Pod. 
Oh… I just realized that I should wear a nicer sweater… 
Not the warm and ugly wool monster.
Have nice day!
APod_PS2.zip (25.4 KB)
Looks to me like you have made some great progress there. I personally could live without the other two modes, or potentially could overload some more, like holding select or Start or … button down while pressing the up/down/left/right of dpad can choose modes or the like. But I am not sure who would find all of these types of combinations.
Kurt
P.S. - I like the warm and ugly wool monster.
Hi Kurt,
Thanks for your input! Ah, of course; the combination of buttons. Well, if we want to keep the single leg mode we could drop the GP and use a combo of cross and D-pad. But the easiest part is to have two dedicate button for the mandibles though.
P.S, yeah I love it too. I probably wear it way to much at this time of the year.
Oh, one thing.
Jim/James: remember to comment out these two lines in the cfg file:
cTurnOffVol con 630 ; When uncomment the bot will turn off when
; the voltage drops below this setpoint (630 = 6.3V)
UseCodeOffsets con 1 ;Comment this line if you are using the internal SSC32 registry offsets
I’m told James will be working on this today. I somehow missed this post! It looks awesome! Thanks!
I am fine with dedicating two buttons to the mandibles. 
Hi,
That’s ok Jim. Like Kurt said in the other thread I also assumed you’ve been busy with other stuff. At work the start of the year always start with counting our stock/inventory.
Right now I’m in the process of replacing the mandible servos from tower pro MG 996R to 5645’s. Personally I recommend using digital servos due to the higher holding torque. I’ll also rotate the C bracket on the head rotation servo so that it will match yours with equally amount of rotation both CW/CCW. Originally my A-Pod has 142 deg CW and 45 deg CCW, after the modification it will have 90 deg CW/CCW like yours. This mean a little more work though. But better when sharing code for compatibility.
I’ve done some minor changes to the code also. Instead of having the speed control as a common control I moved it to the walking mode only (and that’s where we use it to). But the good thing is that in rotation mode (the mode I love ) I’m using the left and right D-pad to adjust the speed and accuracy to the indirect control.
; - D-Pad left Slower but more accurate indirect control
; - D-Pad right Faster respons on indirect control
This feature will be very handy if you want to do very precise control, for example: pour a glass of water. Or impress with fast and smooth body movements. 8)
APod_PS2.zip (199 Bytes)
Hey thanks Kåre! James has been working on it. It was even moving a bit. I like the indirect control method idea. Very nice feature. Hopefully it will be wrapped up Monday.
Sounds good! I’m looking at your tutorials again and I noticed that you are using a 10k resistor and its connected between ground and signal. I used a 4k7 resistor between signal and VCC… But since I’m on it and need to replace the FSR also, I’ll use the same resistor and schematic. I’ll have to do some work on the code anyway.
Sounds great. Can’t wait to see a video!
Kurt
It’s getting late… (02:30 AM)!
I’m done with the mechanical stuff, new servos for the mandibles, new FSR with same schematic as Lynxmotion. Abdomen, head and mandible servos are now calibrated using SSC registers (didn’t bother to do the leg also, to tired… ).
I hope to do some code stuff tomorrow before I’m leaving back to the rest of my family, but can’t promise anything.
