As promised I've started a separate thread on this. I had mentioned over at my Alan thread that I was thinking about using hoverboard motors for a rolling base for the full bodies of Alan and Alena. These motors are super cheap at about $25 a piece on ebay. They are 3 phase just like the 3 phase hobby motors for cars and planes. So there should be driver support for them.....well yes and kinda no.
I have been watching a motor controller called the ODrive. Its all open source (hardware and software) and its a dual motor driver. I posted a video of these motors on a grocery cart driving around using hoverboard motors. So I bought an Odrive. I ended up buying a whole hoverboard so I could use the charger, battery and some of the connectors. This one came from Frys and cost $100. Its good upto 265 pounds.
Well now the bad. The ODrive is still a work in progress and not too intuitive. But they have a good write up on how to set them up with the hall effects encoders. All went well until I tried to save out to the board. Over and over again i could not get it to work right. I posted on the forums and got no reply back as to what the issue could be. So after days I began looking for another solution.
I found a great source in china that is making opensource stuff for skate boards. The got 2 single motor drivers. Each one has a standard servo connector and i can use two of them for mixed mode (tank mode). Each board costs $85. So its a bit more than the ODrive ($150 with shipping for the 48 volt ver.)
The name of the board is the FSESC 4.12 50A Based on VESC 4.12 from Flipsky ESC. And can be found here: Flipsky ESC
This controller can be completely programmed with their really great software..automatically figures out all the poles for the phases. Set up the frequency for the pwm and even have shut offs for voltage mins etc. They have a good youtube channel with vids on how to set up everything.
I have the video of the break down of the hoverboard done. As soon as I get these control boards I will be doing tests with the ezb to control them. Then I'll put together a final video and post here.
Other robots from Synthiam community
Mcsdaver's 3D Printed Ez Robot Bob
Redzone's Inmoov With A Slight Modification
I've not looked into the adventure bot controls. I'll give it a spin. It seems to be more than the joystick since the servo slave was working fine with the control but the Flipsky's just not liking the signal from the IOTiny. But I'll try the download scene and see if i can get it to work better.
Sorry I am throwing these ideas at you but I have no toys to play with yet.
Hahah no problem. I’m running out of ideas.
I tried the Adventure bot and it’s slightly better. I changed the stop position value down to .01 and got even better results. But there are moments where it stops responding altogether. Then I have to release the joystick and try again. I found forward to be ok but reverse was hard to find . I also tried out the forward and reverse icons in the mobile interface ( full speed forward) with no movement at all.
I did do a detailed investigation last Christmas of these Hover board motors used for everything from power skate board mods and robots but then many people were running into complicated problems so I gave up on the idea as I almost bought the Hover motors and then reading about all the complications and difficulty,I cancelled my Ebay order since, I would have had to spend too much extra money to get it working but I am routing for you to see how it can be done with out the problems.;) Edit---The video you have does look like you got it on the right track if you can iron out any bugs!
Robo rad....Yeah I have it working pretty good. Just need try controlling by other means at the moment to make sure that I'm able to send a signal and get a response without the delays on moving and the delay on stop.
Does an arduino drive it ok?
My boards are due today. Got to finish up a job then play time.
I'm in the midst of spring break with family. Might be a bit before I can get back to it. Looking forward to your results. I started looking over a ton of forum threads..not too much on the hoverboards motors but I did find someone having the delay issue..he was having a 2 second delay from stop until the robot stopped. So might be a firmware fix? I'd like to send a video to Benjamin, the guy who wrote VESC.