Thank you for your feature request and for being an active member of our community. We appreciate your feedback and interest in CAN-BUS control and integrating new technologies into Synthiam ARC.

Regarding your inquiry about the O-Drive servo controller, it appears that the library needed to use this controller is not currently available. This limitation makes it impossible to implement a robot skill for O-Drive at this time.

As you may know, with the upcoming release of ARCx, we will no longer be adding new robot skills to the regular ARC. Since ARCx is still under development, we are unable to add new skills to it just yet. However, ARCx is being designed to support more complex APIs and SDKs thanks to its advanced technology and multi-platform support. This will enable more sophisticated integrations, including those for Linux-based technologies.

To move forward with getting robot skills created for ARCx, we recommend reaching out to the manufacturer of the desired technology or product. They can collaborate with Synthiam to develop the necessary integrations. We need to ensure compliance with the manufacturers' terms of use and legalities since Synthiam acts as a re-distributor of their APIs or SDKs within our robot skills.

In the meantime, planning for potential migrations and learning new technologies will be beneficial as we approach the ARCx release. Both ARC and ARCx are designed to be professional-grade platforms where any technology can be added as a robot skill. It's worth noting that while many advanced robot skills are not publicly available due to being owned by organizations, there are still opportunities for individual users to create their own skills using available SDKs or APIs.

Moreover, even if a technology’s robot skill is closed off from public use, you can still leverage open-source or closed-source SDKs or APIs to create your own integrations. Many of these technologies might require microcontrollers like Arduino or programming environments like Python. While Python is widely used by students for learning, it is also a powerful tool for custom integrations.

Synthiam also offers services to create custom robot skills for customers, which can be an excellent option if you prefer not to develop these skills on your own.

We hope this information helps and provides clarity on how to proceed with your robotics projects. We encourage you to wait until ARCx is released and out of beta, then let us know which technologies you’d like to see integrated as robot skills in ARCx.

@DJ that is for the Micro only and does not apply to the S1s and other dual drivers boards they sell. They have been open source for 10 years. Please click the first link for the S1s.

I have two types of FOC controllers that are both open source.

1 from SimpleFOC that just uses an Arduino and you can use PWM but is really designed for low powered BLDC motors. My plan was to use these for micro expressions on a silicon face for inmove to control mouth (smile frown) eyebrows, eyes etc as they can be small and quiet.  The problem is you can only control a couple per Arduino so you need to link them up together. I was thinking CAN-BUS for this.  I was discussing in Discord channel for them but I need a CAN-BUS driver in ARC support for that. I haven't tested with ARC yet but theoretically it should work with ARC PWM servo controller or you could add to ARC Arduino controller.   https://simplefoc.com/

The other boards I have are from MJBots in my Robot Dog, This drives the heavy duty BLDC motors and has various open source libraries including a python but I use ARC web sockets to talk to the web based interface for there robot controller. I think there was a thread where DJ and PTP were helping me get that to work. https://mjbots.com/

Oh yeah, I remember that @nink. It was interesting it used a WebSocket! So much overhead

As for the S1, it looks straightforward. It shouldn't be hard for someone to whip up an EZB firmware for it, although we prefer it when the company works with us; otherwise, it's difficult for our team to maintain it. Or a specific robot skill servo driver similar to how dynamixel, feetech, or others work. The example code pretty much sums up how to control it: https://docs.odriverobotics.com/v/latest/guides/arduino-can-guide.html

Although I think an ezb that has protocol extensions would be ideal.

@nink I have both Simple FOC and MJbots controllers. I used a Simple FOC controller for my hoverboard hack video but was unaware they offered a controller that supports position control!?! MjBots is a really a nice controller I have his test kit. I'm on his Discord...but I feel he is just one guy and fearful he won't last very long, but position control is pretty amazing on his boards.

@Dj I'll reach out to the ODrive guys, as they seem very approachable, and see if they would be interested in working with you. They support James Bruton on alot of his YouTube projects (which is where I saw the S1s being used). Of course they are helping him because he has over a 1 million subs. But sales are sales regardless where they come from. Protocol extension integration would be great , but as you said the Arduino code is there and the board can use PWM to control as well.

I'm going to order ODrives S1s test kit and put it through the ringer. I like ODrives software as it has an algorithm for anti cogging, a must for positional control. Thanks for the feed back!

That’s a good idea to reach out. A few of the robot skills we have are because others reached out and said I’ll be a customer if you have a robot skill for Synthiam arc

Often the company says nah we’re happy giving ppl an sdk and having no customers. I always find that strange. But I think it’s because they’re run by engineers who feel their product is elite if it’s unattainable.

I feel the opposite. Every product should be really easy to use so anyone creative can build with it. Making a robot skill does just that.

we can provide templates so all they have to do is fill in the blanks.

@fxrtst yeah there is some basic position control so you can set an angle.What I like is they are cheap and you can buy them on AliExpress for a couple of dollars. I really haven’t spent a lot of time playing with them yet but the discord provides good (although often condescending ) support  I think they only support < 3amp motors though so not suitable for a robot dog etc    https://docs.simplefoc.com/angle_loop yeah I agree that MJBots is a 1 man hobby project and unless he gets real funding the project will probably die.

@DJ yeah the web sockets I used on the MJBOTS dog are overkill but the good thing is I didn’t have to learn how to create a walking gate or control each leg directly.  All I had to do was say go forward / backward / left / right / fast / slow etc so made controlling with ARC quite easy.  ARC runs all the sensors and it’s more like just driving a remote control car with ARC then trying to move 4 legs in a complex walking gate and dealing with the FOC / PID controllers, accelerometers, power management etc  as this was all handled by the existing software.

@DJ I totally agree. I don't understand why companies would pass up an opportunity to reach more users via partnerships. I just joined ODrives discord, so I have access to the developers now.

Looks like they've decided to make all their newer hardware controllers closed source and the firmware, control algorithm continued as opensource. China knocked off all their older controllers (anything below v3.6) prolly lost $$$..woops.

@nink Thanks for the link for SimpleFOC angle loop.  But at 3 amps max it will have its limitations for sure. I'll take a look.