steve.neal
Australia
Asked
— Edited
I seem to be having trouble with one of my Sabertooth/kangaroo motor controllers. The red error light is on and the the motor will not work. Up until now it has been working fine. I suspect what may have happened, (not sure if this is a thing or not), I had the motor/encoder unplugged from the sabertooth and had run the initiation script while testing other things on the robot. I have tried re-auto tuning but this does not help. How do I reset the red error light? Everything seems to be connected. I cant see an obvious reason for it not to work.
Steve
Your solution is fascinating and curious. So just to be clear; you had to use unshielded cable for the power and shielded for the signal. When you had the power cables running in shielded cable were they running side by side and close to the signal cable? When you say you separated them to get them to work what were you separating them from? I wish I knew what the actual issue was with the EMF and where it was occurring. If you had to separate the + & - of the power cable to get them to work that should not have mattered. If you had to separate and move the unsheilded +& - power cables away from the signal cables then you were still getting emf interference. Either way it was still bleeding over somewhere. Maybe at a connection point? I hate to keep beating a dead horse and put this out into the universe but all that moving cables could have reconnected a bad wire or connection somewhere. I hope I'm just full of crap on that last statement. It's just nice to know what the actual cause of these things are for the next time something like this happens to us.
When you recover from this traumatic event (LOL) would you be willing to take a few pictures of your wiring setup from Roo to motors to power supply? That is if you don't have him all buttoned up yet.
So I'll keep a positive attitude and be sure this issue is behind you. Thanks for including me in your process. It was great to watch you work through this to success.
I will add some pictures tonight with explanations. It's such a relief to be able to move forward. I felt I couldn't move forward at all by working on another part of the robot knowing this issue was still there.
I must head off to work now ....at NASA
Steve
Three, Two, One..... Blast Off!
Steve
Here's a few photos of my setup with regards to the radar motor and ear motors
I have a couple off topic questions if your willing to answer;
Have you had the torso in place with the CSS and the EZB sealed inside? If so have you experienced any connection problems? I see your EZB is mounted on the second shelf down. That would place inside the torso and depending on your WIFI signal direction you may have lots of metal and devices between it and your router. I was afraid of this same issue so I have my two EZB's mounted on the top shelf to get the most unobstructed signal possible. One EZB is for all the torso and head robot functions along with sound streaming. The other EZB just runs both arms. I was also worried with two EZB's being so close to each other that the WIFI radio signals would interfere with each other. I have each mounted about 5 inches apart and there seems to be no issues with interference. However I was having trouble at first with one EZB connecting and not the other. I set a static IP address for each EZB in my router and also have and Engenius Access Point that they attach to. That gives me very strong signal strength close to the robot. Once I did these two things I have had no issues with connections.
The second question; When your radar rotates back and forth (along with the bubble lifter pipe that runs down through the CSS) do you exuberance the collar twisting with the movement and unlocking it's self? I see you have a hook latching system for your collar to lock it down the CSS. I assume you set the collar down on your CSS and twist it in place to secure it. My Collar tend to move a little when the radar rotates and after a while I need to re-lock it in place. After viewing Chris P's HD pictures on his DVD I see the orignal B9 had a clip and screw in the very rear where the collar joined to the torso. I bet it's there to keep this from happening when Bob May used his head to move the radar back and forth and bubble up and down. I plan to add this clip and screw to keep my collar in place.
Third question. What are you using in the center of your CSS to guide the Bubble Lifter pipe. It looks like a PVC fitting. I'm also using a PVC fitting but it's much more bulky and bigger. I had problems with binding and had to do a lot of sanding and aligning from level to level. It was a pain but is heavy duty and solid now. I'm not sure if it was really necessary to go that HD and was a pain in the but. LOL.
Anyway, Nice work and please keep in touch. I'm very interested in your path.
Have fun!
I haven't forgotten about you.
I should be able to spend more time to upload the pics and answer your questions tonight.
Steve
With regards to the EZB mounted inside the torso, yes I have had the torso on with seemingly few problems with connection. Sometimes It does disconnect from the router but the router is installed way up the other end of the house and the robot is down the other end. I do want to upgrade my router and move it to a more central location in the house as I have had some problems with the laptops in the house disconnecting or having a poor signal also from the router. This sort of leads me to question of my own. Every time I run the INIT script, It wont connect. I then have to scan in the Connection box in ARC to find the EZBs and the addresses always have changed since the last time I connected them (From one day to another). I think you may have answered this question in your above post when you said you set a static IP address in the router for each EZB. Not sure if this is the answer or even how to do it.
My radar doesn't seem to loosen the collar from the CSS with radar movement. Just luck I suppose. (More unicorn than class). My collar has three locating blocks which fit into slots cut into the top shelf of the CSS and they fit snuggly between the torso top ring and the CSS. Also the metal hooks are snug as well and when I locate the collar onto the hooks I need to give the collar a quick twist to lock in the hooks. Seems to be firm enough not to twist off.
EDIT: (more unicorn than class).......? Wait.. What? That's not what I typed... rhymes with class though... Laughed my unicorn off!
The center guide in the CSS for the neck tube was again, more luck than good planning
Anyhow, I think I have waffeled on long enough
Steve
Thanks for sharing.
I am proud of how he's coming along so far but there are still plenty of things I would like to improve on. I've lost count how many times I have re-made, re-mounted, replaced or re-wired something because I wasn't happy with it. I still now go to add something to the CSS only to find out that it will impact or clash with the placement of something else not previously thought of and again, the snowball effect happens all over. I try so hard to think of everything that will be in the CSS and how best to locate everything for functionality, space saving and aesthetics, but despite all that thinking, I still run into lots of hurdles... but in saying that, this B9 is a labor of love and I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from it.
Your CSS on the other hand, in fact the whole robot is world class and I can only imagine how much time and effort has gone into it. In my opinion, your robot would have to be the best autonomous B9 in the world. Truly a work of art and an inspiration to the rest of us B9ers, especially me. Whenever I need inspiration, I just watch some of your videos. Just incredible
I will try to make a video of the radar and bubble lifter in action today and then try even harder to work out how to upload it
Thanks again for the kind words Dave
Steve
I don't think i've ever seen a robot build with so much care in the wiring - that's an entire project just in itself. Amazing
I did a video of the bubble lifter (linear actuator) in action. I thought Dave might be interested in it. The camera work and editing leave a little to be desired though *eek*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oFhUPcIjbg&feature=youtu.be
Seriously though, The lifter action is so smooth. That actuator is a lot faster then I thought it would be. Seems like a very natural and human speed. Are you able to stop it at different positions and control the speed? Are you using the Sabertooth and roo to drive this? Sorry if you have already shared this info with me and I forgot. Heck somtimes I cant remember what I had for breakfast. LOL.
If I had to rebuild my lifter I'd go your route. I'm not entirely happy with my servo driven fork design.
I really did enjoy that vid. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for showing off.
I cant take credit for the neck tube roller ball castor idea. I saw in in a video by Greg Logue showing his new and improved Bubble Lifter design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOICtuLYBoA
You can see the ball castor at the 2:22 minute mark. I was thinking to do the same as Greg and use a motor with an off-center wheel but decided to go with a high speed linear actuator instead.
The roller ball castor, I bought it off ebay. Here's a link to one the size I used but there's heaps of choices
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2-4-10x-32mm-Wide-Screw-Mounted-Furniture-Trolley-Rack-Ball-Swivel-Caster-Castor-/401044714205?var=&hash=item5d6020b2dd:m:msE1VXcFDlouHeIhgD8eZUg
I was planning to pull the neck tube apart tonight to show you how I made it but yet again I have run out of time *tired* I will endeavor to get it done for you in a day or two
Steve
Thanks for the links they really help and are a pleasure following.
Too Late
I too was worried about the linear pot not working well with the sabertooth but it seems to work fine. Something I do need to test though is the linear actuator with some weight on top of it. I need to add about 5Kg to it, (my head section weighs about 5Kg), and test it with that. The actuator is apparently rated to 10Kg according to the specs, so I'm hoping it will do it with ease. Time will tell.
Steve