Hello all; I am new here and getting started building my first robot! Without going into detail on how much of a newbie I am, I am very mechanical and technical savvy but still new to robotics. Anyways! I am looking to build a semi-custom biped thats remote controlled by a PS2 controller. With that said whats the best hardware setup? Does the ARC32 accept a PS2 controller? Or, do I need to use an SCC32 with a Bot Board II. Also if the ARC32 works with the PS2 whats the best program to use; IDE, SCC sequencer or does the ARC32 come with a program? Any info would be helpful, Thanks!!!
You might have thought this was an easy question, but it’s complex to answer. Either will do the job, but it depends on your coding experience and what the end goal is. We have a solution in place for the Bot Board II/Atom Pro 28 with the SSC-32. This allows you to control the SSC-32 with a program called the Visual Sequencer. It allows you to create a number of sequences, sequences are a series of movements, that can be played back. These sequences can be exported as Basic Atom Pro programs. This allows you to replace the PC with the Atom Pro. Note there is additional programming required to choose which sequence you want to run, but it does simplify the process. The Bot Board II/Atom Pro with SSC-32 provides;
SSC-32 = 32 servo outputs and 4 analog/digital inputs
Atom Pro 28 = 20 general I/O’s of which 8 are analog capable.
The drawback is you need to mount two boards instead of one. The ARC-32 is a single board solution and should have ample I/O for a biped, but as I stated before, you will have to write all movement code yourself. The ARC-32 has a simpler SSC-32 work alike code that runs in the background. In some cases if an error is made in code it can corrupt the background code which can send out of spec signals to the servos. When you are using the SSC-32 it’s impossible for this to happen. Both are really good solutions.
appreciate this post from you too (I think you and I are in the same boat MrWizard - good technical skills but no programming experience). I’m soon to purchase a Johnny 5 robot.
Going off the above, does this mean while the SSC-32 supports 32 servos, the Atom Pro 28 handles considerably less (how many?), meaning some servos will have to be left by the wayside with PS2 control?
To start out, is there anything wrong with me using SSC-32 --> serial cable --> smaller than Pico ITX Cyrix II SBC motherboard running Visual Sequencer to play around with programming/sequences? In addition, does the ARC32 have a similar program like Visual Programmer (that is, something with a GUI) to program sequences?
If I understand correctly the Bot Board II is the processor running whats programmed from the sequencer software telling the SSC-32 hardware what servo sequences to do.
