ROV project

Lynxmotion Electronics & Software
1

Hey,

I’m interested in building an ROV over the summer, and have been toying around with a couple of ideas on how to do it. I’ve ordered the basic atom with the board, and a sabertooth 2x5 motor controller. To control the thing, I’d use the PS2 controller.

One of my concerns was to minimize my tether. To do this, I’d just use an ethernet cable, along with a cable to connect a video camera to a TV. The micro-controller and the motor controller would be on the ROV, along with a battery pack to power everything.

My question is about the ethernet cable and its ability to send the signal from the PS2 controller to the basic atom. Is this idea viable? Would the signal need to be boosted? The cable would be (hopefully) 100 feet.

Thanks!

2

Ok, I received my stuff this weekend, and I’ve started playing around with it. Unfortunately, I realized a little too late that the atom pro I ordered isn’t the best for using a PS2 controller with the Mini ABB (I read…somewhere…that you need to modify the board…?).

Some of the problems I’m having:

  • Whenever I try to use the code from the basic atom example (for some reason, it won’t let me post URLs) it compiles just fine, but it says “Unable to open ComPort” on Terminal 1 whenever I try to connect.

  • Whenever I try using the code from the basic stamp 2 example (making a few adjustments) it also compiles just fine (using the debug mode) but it just outputs the highest values of each variable.

  • I also realized a little too late that there’s a PS2 connector available, which I didn’t order. So I decided to try hacking the wire on my current one using online wiring info. I was confused for a little while because the colors on this sites connector didn’t match the actual colors on my controller. My current configuration is this (using wire wrapping to connect the wires to the pins):

DATA brown I/O P4
COMM orange I/O P5
ATT yellow I/O P6
CLK blue I/O P7

VCC red I/O VL
GND black I/O GND

Unused wires: green, violet, uncovered wire (not sure which wire this is…is it another ground? Should I include this with the black wire?)

This is without any modifications to the board, which I realize might be what’s wrong with my second problem.

When I press the analog button on the PS2 controller, the red light turns on, which I guess means that my VCC and GND connections are ok.

Any help on those three points would be much appreciated. When I get my controller working with my board, I’ll try using the CAT5 cable to see if I can get signal to travel through it.

Thanks!