SSC-32 with an R/c transmitter or Gamepad?

Lynxmotion Electronics & Software
1

Ok, sorry if this is a lame question but I’m in the process of ordering a bunch of parts for a robot project. Basically it will be a tethered robot with a mobile chassis to inspect air ducts in floors and ceilings. It will also be mounted with a robotic arm.

My questions is, What would be the best way of manually controlling the arm and robot? I have years experience with R/c components and a wealth of servos, receivers and a high end computer transmitter. But I’m not sure what will work best for control. I’d like to control the basic motion of the arm with my transmitter or a similar 2 Axis controller (PS2) but I also need the ability to pan and tilt the cameras and control the motion of vehicle.

Since it will be tethered, I can use my laptop to do the mixing and endpoints of channels but can I plug a 2 aXis gamepad into my laptop to control the SSC-32 Sequencer program? Or does the gamepad have to be plugged into the controller? And can I program the buttons and slider on it to add the motion controls to the pad and use the analog stick for the arm?

Also, If I want to use the software to create combined servo controls (mixed channels for example that make the camera pan/tilt, follow the arm base movement) can I use the SSC-32 Sequencer software and control it from the laptop with a gamepad? Or do I need a “botboard” onboard the vehicle and the controller tethered to that?

If I do need a bot board, can you upload your servo sequencing from the program directly to the bot board so that the vehicle has the servo combinations onboard? Or is that unnecessary? I would like to eventually have all of my servo mixing sequences onboard the vehicle so I can simply tether the controller to the bot and eliminate the laptop for operation (other than for programming and debugging). So the finished product would end up basically a tethered r/c vehicle with video relay.

What bot board would you recommend to compliment to SSC-32 board?

Don’t know if it matters but there will be 2 sensors, 18 servos, 4 motor controllers and 2 gyros.

Sorry for the barrage of questions, I’m just trying to familiarize myself with the capabilities of the the components so I know what I’ll need to get started. Thanks alot for any help you can offer.

Cheers

2

Here is an article on another bot used to inspect ducts:

kronosrobotics.com/Projects/ … 0Bot.shtml

Also, they have code to provide control from a Playstation controller as well. I built a tracked bot using the kronos code he provided. I now have an X10 camera on this bot too and can drive it all over the house with the PS2 wireless controller. The PS2 and color camera do interfere a little with each other, both 2.4 gig.

kronosrobotics.com/forums/vi … .php?t=582

A more extensive write up combining the DIOS, PS2 and SSC-32 can be found here:

kronosrobotics.com/Projects/DiosWalker.shtml

It’s not exactly what you are looking for but might help as you finalize your requirements. Why have you decided to make it tethered? Is it because of power, recovery, processing or some other reason? Just wondering.

3

Hello,

What would be the best way of manually controlling the arm and robot?
If you want total manual control over every servo then go with one of them fancy few $100 RC remotes with lots of buttons and stuff like that.
You can also do this with the PS2 controller. To find out more info about it and what can be done please read the other replies.

**can I plug a 2 aXis gamepad into my laptop to control the SSC-32 Sequencer program?
Or does the gamepad have to be plugged into the controller?
And can I program the buttons and slider on it to add the motion controls to the pad and use the analog stick for the arm? **
What do you mean 2 axis gamepad? Since I am not sure what you mean by that, then I will pretend you are talking about a normal PS2 controller or other controller.
Yes you can plug one into your computer (adapters sold at many stores) however, you can’t control the SEQ out of the box. You will have to write your own software to detect the motions you are doing on the controller and transfer them into mouse macros or mouse movements.
You can plug in a PS2 controller into the bot board and use the buttons to run labels or code. e.g. pressing the left button makes your robot turn left. pressing up makes it move foward. moving the left joystick can control the arms movement. pressing the square button can make it run a bunch of stuff. Like make it move foward, turn stop back up .etc

**can I use the SSC-32 Sequencer software and control it from the laptop with a gamepad?
Or do I need a “botboard” onboard the vehicle and the controller tethered to that? **
As I said before, you can’t control the SEQ with a PS2 controller out of the box. you will have to write your own software to convert the controller movements to mouse movements.

can you upload your servo sequencing from the program directly to the bot board so that the vehicle has the servo combinations onboard?
Yes. The SEQ program has the ability to export to Basic Atom and Basic Stamp code. However, I believe you may need to rewrite it if you wish to use it with the SSC-32.

**What bot board would you recommend to compliment to SSC-32 board? **
I would recommend the Mini Atom Bot Board.

I don’t think I may have covered everything. Since your questions were a bit the same, I am going to explain what IS possible to be done rather “easily” (define easily as you wish :stuck_out_tongue:)

What can be done is you can connect a Mini Atom Bot Board to a SSC-32 Servo Controller and plug in a Play Station 2 Controller (ps2 adapter sold at lynxmotion!)
In the Basic Atom code you can make it so that different movements of the buttons on the PS2 controller will do different tasks. There already is example code of how to control a lynxmotion arm, hex, and rover with the PS2 controller. If you want a Rover with an arm on it then you might have to make your own code. I think there is an example of that actually. Not sure, check the Downloads section.

What also can be done is this: Instead of connecting the PS2 controller to the Mini Atom Bot Board, you can connect it to your PC or Laptop. Then, make a VB or C++ program which will read the info it gets from the controller (what buttons have been pressed) and then send a string of data to the SSC-32 with info on what servos to control. Basically, you replace having a Basic Atom with your computer (much more powerful processor.) You can even get a WiPort and wirelessly communicate to the SSC-32/robot.

Feel free to ask more questions. I started out asking tons of questions :stuck_out_tongue: Ask nick :wink:

Hope this helps and doesn’t confuse you more,
-robodude666

4

Hmm…
Some things seem to need clearing up.

Yes, you can skip the botboard, provided that you find a way to get your PC to read the PS2 controller.

robo mentioned that there was ample adapters for that, so I’ll take his word on that since I haven’t looked.
If there aren’t adapters, you’d need a micro as well as a level shifter (if you’re using a serial port, that is) to interpret the PS2’s data and switch it around into what your computer can understand.
If that’s the case, I’d advise saving yourself the hassle and just buying a USB game controller.

Methinks think that individual control over arm servos would be quite lengthy.
Since you have a tether, you can use RIOS or write your own similar software for it.
RIOS impliments IK (Inverse Kinematics, a form of angular trigonometry) so that the user need only dictate the desired position of the end effector (usually a gripper).
Then the software calculates (or looks up on a chart) the necessary servo angles to get it there.
There’s a ton of IK tutorials on the LM site.
That should save you a lot of buttons and a lot of fancy fingerwork.

5

Lynxmotion has a tutorial with a picture with a Playstation2 controller to USB cable. I also seen xbox to USB cables sold. And the xbox 360 controller is an unmodded USB last time I checked. I know there is a NES/SNES to USB/serial cable out there. Don’t know about n64, dreamcast and gensis. Thats about all the major systems. There are gameepads sold for the PC… You can use one of em if you can’t find an adapter cable.

6

The most direct and proven setup would probably controlling the robot from a laptop computer. It probably could be controlled via a single run of cat3 phone wire which the robot wouldn’t have much pulling along behind it.

7

I think that’s a great idea.
I’ve seen a CAT-5 Ethernet cable bot, but that seemed a bit hefty to lug around.
Yeh might want to tie a strain relief knot in there, if you do go with the phone cable.
That way, you can use the phoneline itself to pull the bot back if he gets stuck.

8

I haven’t tried it yet, it should be possible to have the four wires support a common ground, power, analog video, and rs232 Tx communications. I’ve planned to check this with one of the kronos servo chips to be able to have a pan/tilt surveillance cam setup connected to a pc via a single run of cat3 wire.

9

Zoomkat,

can you post a screenshot of the circuit? The best easy to use circuit drawing program is ExpressPCB.

expresspcb.com/

10

Um…
Mike…

Unless I’m mistaken, we are just talking about a wire.
A phone cable to be exact.

So, here’s your schematic:

GND PWR VA TX
|    |   |  |
|    |   |  |
~    ~   ~  ~
|    |   |  |
|    |   |  |
GND PWR VA TX

:laughing:

11

Um… I don’t understand the schematic… :laughing:

JK

I just re-read his post and I see it was just a simple wire. I thought he was talking about connections on a circuit but was to lazy to read the other post. :laughing: :blush:

12

Wow, thanks alot for all the info.

Now the gamepad, I didn’t mean it had to be specifically a PS2 controller. Not only do I have a USB and gameprod paddle but I also have the DSC simulator cord for my 8 chanel R/C transmitter. I have a program that interprets the signals from the channels and uses those signals for my R/C flight sims. What kind of signals? No clue. Would the SSC-32 understand them? How would I know. :slight_smile: LOL

The arm will be setup like the Lynx arm. But I want 4 proportional controls to operate the arm. The left toggle (gimble or joystick) would move the boom up and down, swing left and right. The right stick would operate the stick (arm) up and down and the hand rotate left/right. That takes up all my proportional axis. Now for forward and reverse motion of the vehicle, I don’t want to use just an on/off button, I need proportional control. So most likely the vehicle motion would be controlled by a second single axi joystick. And the arm would be ran by a 2 axi joystick (such as a PS2 or USB gamepad). I am currently a backhoe operator and foreman by trade so the arm control would come naturally for me. Just like running the pilot controls joysticks in my backhoe.

It needs to be tethered to drag it’s 1/4 airline with it for the maintenance tools attached to the hand.

My main problem is, I can’t program. I know, this is a big problem. I’ve built and flown large scale R/C planes, jets and helicopters for over 15 years. So I have a very good understanding of servos, radios, electronics brushles motors, Speed controllers, lipos, gearing, etc. And I have done some experimenting with some C/C++, Java and Basic code. I’m very good with HTML. I also have built and fixed computers for years so I’m confident with my software and hardware skills.But the idea of programming all my control inputs manually, scares me a bit. I was hoping there would be a graphic interface program of some sort to help me out with asigning the signals. The SSC-32 program was pretty easy to get used to.

I know you are all thinking that if I want to build a robot, I better learn the code. But I’ve got most of my bases covered in other areas. It’s just the code that scares me. I’ve been reading alot about it and once the rest of my parts get here, I’ll be giving it a shot.

So, what would be the least trouble (least programming) for me to start out with? A USB gamepad and using the mini Atom Board, the SSC-32 and the Sequencer program?

Thanks alot for all the help guys.

13

It is a simple setup where I send unregulated ~12v on the power wire and then adjust the voltage as needed at the pan/tilt cam. There is a simple schematic at the page below for the controller and servo power. For the cam power I’d drop the 12v to 9v and send the cam video back on the fourth wire. The ground wire is common for all the components. A single wire in the cat3 cable probably couldn’t adequately handle a lot of servos and motors, but it probably could keep an onboard battery on a ROV topped off and let the battery handle the high instantanous loads. There is a six conductor (cat4?) phone wire that is flexable. Two runs of cat3 losely twisted together and taped every couple of feet is probably more flexable than cat5 cables.

geocities.com/zoomkat/ezservo.htm

14

Actually you probably don’t have to use a computer or do programming. You could just make an ROV controlled via standard RC equipment instead, especially if you are already familiar with the operation of his type of equipment.

15

You are probably right. The more I read through the SSC-32 software manual and the lynx arm software, the more I realize that I don’t really have any servos I want to operate automaticaly or together I really need to operate each channel manually for full control. hmmmm

Now my only problem is that most of the duct work will be under conrete floors and behind walls and I don’t think that I would be able to keep a signal. So how would I create a line from my receiver to my transmitter so I can tether them instead of using Radio frequency? Maybe just an SSC-32 controller and the Software to asign each servo to a control input from a USB gamepad. Or is there a way to tether the Receiver and transmiter? Ectending the antenna as a tether would not work since it would absorb a huge amount of radio noise and glitch like crazy.

Hmm.

16

I’d go with extending the Tx antenna using a wire run from the Tx to the Rx on the bot. If you have some RC equipment you could experiment by putting the rx in an rf shielded enviroment and see if you can send the rf down the wire. You might be able to just tape the wire end in parallel with the tx antenna to get the rf to go down it to the rx. As for a game pad, making a program to send rs232 signals to a servo controller is fairly simple. The below three page thread shows how I made one for use with a $5 gamepad. I also made one for use with a joystick that is in the middle thread. The bottom link probably has the latest code for both the gamepad and joystick.

justbasic.conforums.com/index.cg … 1117484852

justbasic.conforums.com/index.cg … 1145789908

kronosrobotics.com/forums/vi … .php?t=328