SSC-32 V2 "Upgrade"

Lynxmotion Electronics & Software
1

Seeing as the SSC-32U was recently released, I wanted to work on some of the issues that had me shelving my robotic project.
The SSC-32 was pretty rough around the edges, providing the bare amount of failsafe and redundancies. The serial connector was also a major pain.
I therefore set out not to spend more money, but to re purpose the very simple circuit that is the SSC-32 V2,
I’ve since attached a microusb FTDI breakout to the serial jumpers (apparently the board didn’t like the serial data being passed through the DB9 Serial buffer.
Heres the test mods:
Two 330uf resevoir caps to the LM2937-5.0’s output with the 5v USB out bypassing the regulator as well. I left the baud jumpers alone (I want to add latching or even autobaud support).

Sadly, I can’t get the firmware to compile correctly (don’t know if correct files frome here: ssc32.125mb.com , linux issue, or multiple, but it fails with multiple errors. This sadly halts my replacement of the 168 with the slightly larger ATMEGA328.)
I want to know what other additions would make the SSC-32 the ULTIMATE servo controller. Is there something anyone could recommend as a regulator replacement? The crystal is 14.74MHz, is that by choice, power requirement, or oversight?
Any much needed features other controllers have?

Advice or insight would be awesome, this is just a side project I’ve been kicking around and would love to get worked out.
-Quinn

2

Hi Quinn,

The link you provided with source code for the SSC-32 is not an official source and may not have functional source code. It should be noted that we do not currently provide the source code for the SSC-32 and therefore cannot offer support building the project.

Concerning the crystal selection, typical crystals for serial communications with proper baud rate are 3.6864 Mhz, 7.3728 Mhz, 11.0592 Mhz, 14.7456 Mhz, 18.432 Mhz.
As you can see from the tables here, 14.74 MHz was the fastest crystal (at the time the ATmega168 only supported clock speeds up to 16 MHz) that could be used that supported all the baud rates properly (no significant error).
With most modern AVRs, you could now also use a 18.432 Mhz crystal.

Sincerely,