This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - LukeZ
Pages: 1 ... 18 19 20 [21] 22 23 24 ... 78
301
« on: February 27, 2020, 10:00:54 AM »
The 9600 is not working, I have just one motor moving, not both of them. I understand that the signal for both is mixed in the package but somehow the second motor is getting no commands, as at the 9600 bauds just one motor commands are read in Sabertooth. And the automatic update of the signal speed is not recognized. Maybe I will try the DE software with serial adapter, just to see if work. It is very uncommon but I wonder if you might have a defective Sabertooth. Perhaps you will have success with the DE software. The Sabertooths are very good controllers and no one has yet reported a case where they didn't work, until you, but I suppose there is always a first time for everything.
302
« on: February 27, 2020, 09:58:23 AM »
I can’t understand how I need in the setup program - to change the output, which channel will control the left/right engine, which lift cannon, which rotary tower.
As I understand it, this does not change in the program, only in mixing using the remote control? You can change the order of all the channels on the Radio tab of OP Config using the Order option for each channel. Of course in some cases (for Aux channels) the assignment also depends on which Aux channel you assign to which function. So no, you do not need to change the channels in your remote control, it can all be done in OP Config. Mixing channels is my headache. There really should be no need to "mix" any channels unless you are doing something really creative. P.S. I am gradually translating Wiki Open Panzer into Russian, is it possible to add the Russian version Wiki Open Panzer on your official website? Thank you for the kind offer, but I would rather not do that right now. Several people have previously tried, even in Russian, but the process is never completed and it also creates work for me. The website can be translated with Google and although I know it isn't perfect I will leave it at that for now. P.P.S. I redid my turnigy 9x to work with FrSky XJT transmitters and changed the firmware to ER9X, and the processor to a more powerful and more internal memory. That is a very good radio combination, I use the same thing. Learning er9x at first can be confusing. Maybe this is where your comment about mixing comes from. In er9x, every channel you want to use has to be assigned in the "Mixer" menu on your transmitter. By default I think only the first four channels are defined. We are not actually doing any "mixing" here, just assigning channels to outputs on your receiver. There is an er9x manual here, including a version in Russian.
303
« on: February 25, 2020, 05:03:57 AM »
Well I'm glad we're keeping you from boredom! That's the right attitude to have. Good luck with the Eagle routing, it is quite satisfying when you get a massive tangle of air wires all neatly routed in the end, but it can be a job to get there. I think people who like puzzles and Sudoku and things like that would probably like routing boards just for the fun of it. Someone should make a game out of it.
304
« on: February 25, 2020, 05:00:50 AM »
1. with baud rate to 9600 the left motor is working with strange behavior, is working even the transmission is not engaged. After one command of transmission engage-disengage, come to normal. At 19200 and 38400 is not working at all.
2. RC outputs are working but the same behavior, the motors are under power even the transmission is not engaged. After a transmission cycle, the power is coming just with the transmission engaged.
Probably what you describe with the transmission is normal. The transmission will always be engaged automatically when you turn the engine on, it doesn't matter what your transmission switch position is in. After the engine is started, now you can disengage the transmission. For this reason you might prefer to use the "Transmission - Toggle On/Off" function instead of the individual on and off functions you are using now. Assign the "Transmission - Toggle On/Off" function to Position 1 of your Aux Channel 7, and assign nothing to Position 2. Every time you move the switch to position 1 the transmission status will be toggled. If you have a 3-position switch on your transmitter what I like to do is put "Engine - Toggle On/Off" in Position 1, "Transmission - Toggle On/Off" in Position 3, and nothing in Position 2 (the middle position). But everybody has their own preference! It seems a little difference between the motors speed, how we assure the straight-line drive? Presently the TCB does not offer any special steering adjustments, but you can use the steering trim on your transmitter (but make sure when you do Radio Setup the trim are centered first, and only adjust them later. You have already done radio setup so you're fine). However using steering trim can only work a little bit, if you adjust it too much the tank will start to "neutral turn" when you are stopped. If the tank is really turning a lot while you are trying to go straight it is worthwhile looking at mechanical issues, and possibly you might want to adjust the track tension on one side. I did not like this too much as 2 RC outputs are gone but for the moment seems the best arrangement to continue the works on it.
Is it possible a problem with the firmware in Sabretooth, not to recognize-reset the superior baud and to decode wrong the serial pack? There is nothing wrong with using 9600 Baud if the Sabertooth responds to it, I don't think you will notice any difference compared to 38400. So if that works you can do that and leave those 2 RC outputs free. I don't know why your Sabertooth is not responding to the other baud rates, many people are using the Sabertooth with the TCB without problem. One other thing you could try is to connect to your Sabertooth using Dimension Engineering DESscribe software ( download here, manual here). However it requires you to buy a USB-TTL converter before you can make the connection. The DEScribe software will let you change the baud rate and maybe for some reason it will work better than the OP Config tool. But if it is working at 9600 baud I think the easiest thing is just to leave it there and enjoy!
305
« on: February 24, 2020, 12:42:42 PM »
It seems there is some issue with the Sabertooth receiving serial commands. I see nothing wrong with your wiring or your OPZ file.
There are two things you can try:
1) Try running the Sabertooth Baud Rate Tool in OP Config once again. Remember to connect your Sabertooth to the TCB and apply power to both. After setting the baud rate, the Sabertooth has to be restarted for the change to take effect.
I know you did this already but it is worth trying it again. If it still does not work, try lowering the motor serial baud rate to 9600 and running the Baud Rate Tool again, see if that helps.
2) You can also try controlling the Sabertooth with RC inputs. On the Motors tab of OP Config set the Drive Motors to RC Output. Now you will need to connect your Sabertooth to RC outputs 1 and 2 on the TCB. Only connect the 0V, S1 and S2 signals to the Sabertooth, do NOT connect the 5V signal from the TCB to the Sabertooth! (This would be the middle wire of your servo cable).
The Sabertooth will also need different dipswitch settings for RC mode, they should be 1, 4, 6 OFF and 2, 3, 5 ON.
See if either of those work and maybe that will give us more information.
306
« on: February 23, 2020, 06:07:18 AM »
Hi Jerry, you should be able to get the "personal use" version of Fusion 360 for free, and then the Eagle add-on is only about $16 a month, at least that's what I'm paying right now. Maybe they have increased the prices. The TCB itself is only two layers and that includes fairly comprehensive ground and power planes! Your design should be possible to do in 2 layers too, being even less complicated than the original TCB. Possibly you are trying to use the auto-router and it says it can't be done. The auto-router is really of no use in my view; I've never used it. You can do a lot with 2 layers (manually) but it definitely is like a massive puzzle. Looking at your design I can see it will be a challenge, but without actually getting into it I don't know how bad/impossible/practical it might be. I certainly don't think if you are new to circuit design that you will complete your design in a single month. Eagle takes a long time to learn, and routing even longer. There are many tutorials and resources on the internet, but even so it still requires a lot of effort on the part of the individual. Just like you can't put together a 10,000 piece puzzle very quickly, neither can you route a crowded board very quickly. Even if you don't mind paying for the full version keeping a design to 2 layers is a good exercise. I would probably suggest you try it and see how far you get, that saves you from having to buy anything. Component placement is important, try to place things near to the pins they will be connected to, this way you don't have as many traces that run all across the board and will have to cross each other. You can also give yourself more room just by increasing the size of the board, but of course that makes it more expensive to produce and also we would prefer smaller for our models... It's really beyond my abilities to give a tutorial on PCB design and traces sizes and such, and I'm no expert myself. But for signals you can always use down to 10 mil (0.01 inches) and that is the vast majority of what you have. For high power circuits like the smoker I usually don't even use traces, but rather planes/polygons. It might be useful to examine the board layout on the TCB to see how things like the ground and power planes were done. Notice the smoker MOSFET was placed quite close to the power input terminals, as were the onboard motor outputs, and things that needed less current were progressively farther away. You are in for a lot of work if you want to make your own boards, but it can be a satisfying hobby if that's what you want to do!
307
« on: February 23, 2020, 05:29:21 AM »
The only thing I miss is changing the assignment of the outputs of the RC channels. I don't know if you have a question about this, but if you do let me know. To be honest, for me it is more a learning experience, I do not plan to sell my work based on someone else's global work. For me it’s a hobby, and a desire to popularize Luke’s work. Because the project is open source you are certainly permitted to sell your designs if you want. Of course assembling boards, taking orders and shipping is usually not worth the effort for the small hobbyist. One thing you can do is simply make the design available for anyone else who wants to build the same board. You can think about that later after you have tested the hardware and made sure it does what you expect!
308
« on: February 23, 2020, 05:25:18 AM »
In fact, it is exactly what I want but because I have no movement I did not notice the difference ... I have tested the transmission on and off with the engine on the idle, no success. But I will test it again next week, just to be sure. Ok good, you understand the transmission functions. It is probably not the cause of your problem but I just wanted to be sure you were aware of it. I need to clarify myself also about what manual transmission function is doing... Most people do not need the manual transmission function, only if you can not center your throttle stick. Using the manual transmission increases complexity as you have to use another channel to select forward/reverse/neutral and I do not recommend it if you don't need it. And, if we are here - at this subject, I noticed that the engine rev sound is going linear with the throttle. But the Panther had a 7 gears transmission and I want to have a sloping sensor that makes the revving sound depending on the terrain slope and maybe in the future to look at inertial behavior as the engine will react differently to different throttle input depending on actual speed and slope. It will be nice to reproduce the dead of the engine when a man fails the clutch - transmission - engine throttle synchronization. These are interesting ideas but the TCB does not possess any of those options. Of course if you want to modify the firmware you can add any features you want, but some things are too complicated and would be used by too few people to make it worth the effort to add them to the official firmware. I found the Dimension Engineering "Basic Troubleshooting for Motor Drivers", first is to check the output in analog mode. Yes, if you have a potentiometer this is the easiest way to verify that your Sabertooth works, at least the motor drive outputs. If they do work, then we know the issue is somewhere with the serial commands.
309
« on: February 21, 2020, 03:41:58 AM »
About transmission, how I could disengage it? I do not have a function for on/off of it from what I know and did not intend it now as I am just on begin of the function discovery. Actually in your OPZ file I do see functions to turn on/off the transmission, see the screenshot below. The transmission will automatically engage when you turn on the engine so these functions are not necessary. The only reason I provide them is if you want to "rev the engine" (sounds only) without moving the tank, in that case you can disengage the transmission and then apply throttle - the tank will remain stationary, but the Benedini will receive the throttle sounds. If you don't care to do that you can just remove those functions. At the very least check the position of your Aux Channel 7 switch to make sure the transmission is engaged when you try to drive (you can also verify the transmission is engaged with Snoop).
310
« on: February 21, 2020, 03:34:08 AM »
Guess my FTDI adapter is a cheap copy.. Any suggestions on a good brand/type to buy? I usually recommend the Adafruit FTDI Friend or the SparkFun version, but I don't know how easy it would be to obtain them in Europe. It looks like Farnell has an adapter too, here is the UK site. Only problem i have now is that my M2 channel is not working like in one of the previous posts. It seems i have a short on the lower pads (i guess)..
Almost certainly the issue is a short on the motor driver chip M2 during reflow. This is not hard to do, and I have done it myself on occasion.
If i manage to remove the chip, is it still usable after the short?
Good question, and I don't actually know. When I have done this I have not wanted to risk more work so I replaced it with a new chip.
311
« on: February 20, 2020, 12:15:07 PM »
My mistake in explanations, is not a servo, is a speed reducer with a motor that one from Taigen. I have measured again the output on A and B with a voltmeter, are exact as supposed, 0V on middle and increase to maximum positive or negative, depends on the stick position. The only explanation is just poor connections on screws, I will re-do it next week I think you are right. The voltmeter tells us that the TCB is working correctly, so either a poor connection, or possibly the Taigen motor is broken for some reason, but they are relatively inexpensive to replace if so. I checked again the Sabretooth 2x12 with the voltmeter, the same thing (0V), just one particular thing, after I moved to maximum the MA suddenly shown 0.87V which remains the same, no matter the stick position. The red/green LEDs work fine, even not every time when I start the TCB. Do you have a clue how I can test the serial controller? It sounds like you have setup everything correctly. The problem you describe sounds like the Sabertooth is not recognizing the serial signals. But you have already set the dipswitches correctly, and run the Baud Rate Tool in OP Config. I see no problems with your OPZ file. Normally I would recommend you do a test with the TCB connected to Snoop, just to make sure it is responding to your radio correctly. However your description of the red, green and blue LEDs tells me that you already have all that working correctly. Do you know that Dimension Engineering actually sells two versions of the Sabertooth 2x12? One version ( here) can accept serial commands. But the other version ( here) can only accept RC inputs. By chance do you maybe have the RC-only version? Otherwise it never hurts to try the things you have already done once more. Double-check the dipswitch settings. Run the Baud Rate Tool once again. To be sure, maybe try a test while connected to Snoop. Make sure you do not have the transmission disengaged. Finally, maybe you can take a picture of the Sabertooth and TCB wiring. It sounds like you know what you are doing so I don't expect to find any mistakes, but I am also not sure what else to check. the Benedini Mini was set up for working with TCB by the originator but instead of machine gun 2 I have some orders in german or the cannon fire sound is dumped ( the sound of the shell on the floor is very clear) and is doubled, is going too times. This is not surprising, the first 8 sounds on the Benedini Mini are pre-defined, but sounds 9-15 are "User Sounds" which can have multiple different functions depending on what the user decides to do. Thomas has assigned some sounds there but they are not exactly what you want. You will need to add your own MG2 sound in Benedini's TBS Flash software and replace the German sound. There are instructions on this page.
312
« on: February 19, 2020, 03:50:30 PM »
Hi Costique, I am getting ready to go to bed but I will return tomorrow with more input.
In the meantime, would you be able to post your OPZ file? First connect to your TCB with OP Config, read all the settings from the TCB (use the green arrow button in OP Config), then in OP Config go to the File menu at the top, select "Save Settings to File" and save the file somewhere on your computer. Next you can upload this file to the forum by using the "Attachments and other options" when you write a post.
I will say with regard to the Motor A and B outputs, they can only drive actual motors and not servos. Most Taigen tanks use actual motors for the turret and if that is what you have should work. But if you happen to have a Taigen tank that uses a servo (I am not aware of one, but they are releasing new things all the time), it will not work with the Motor A or B outputs. We can of course use one of the servo outputs on the TCB, but let us first solve your other problems before we get too far.
313
« on: February 19, 2020, 06:59:14 AM »
Hi Johnny, A few other things to check - when loading the firmware over FTDI, the Scout can not be connected via Serial to your TCB, otherwise it will fail. I should have mentioned this earlier. The Scout does need battery power during programming, but be sure to unplug the serial cable to the TCB during the programming operation. It won't damage anything if it is connected, but the programming won't work. Also be sure to select the correct COM port for your FTDI adapter, and double-check that you are connecting your FTDI adapter in the correct orientation to the board. Out of curiosity what FTDI adapter are you using? These adapters can also be a source of problems, especially the Chinese ones. You may want to confirm the FTDI adapter itself is actually functional. Out of curiosity, I wonder also what ICSP programmer you are using to flash the bootloader? As for loading the sketch using ICSP and the Arduino IDE, you can download the Sketch from GitHub, here is the link. Click on the green "Clone or Download" button and select "Download ZIP." Unzip the file, there will be a few folders and files in there, you only need the "OpenPanzerScout" folder which you should place in your Arduino Sketch directory, wherever that is (you can find the location in the Arduino IDE by going to the File menu, selecting Preferences, and you will see the path to "Sketchbook Location" near the top of the popup form). Now open this sketch in the IDE, select "Arduino Nano" for the board and select the correct Port. Now typically from here you would program the sketch on to your device using the right arrow button at the top of the IDE (via your FTDI adapter), but if you want to program the sketch using the programmer go to Sketch menu -> Upload Using Programmer (in this case you also of course need to specify what programmer you are using in the Tools menu, same as for doing the bootloader). Let me know what happens...
314
« on: February 17, 2020, 06:32:22 AM »
Good heavens, that is quite the jig! You are definitely not ignoring the small details.
315
« on: February 12, 2020, 04:25:32 AM »
If the bootloader process doesn't give an error then we would expect it has worked, though I seem to recall the confirmation being somewhat more verbose than you describe.
The bootloader is flashed using the 2x3 ICSP header so it is a different set of pins than the FTDI used for firmware. Therefore it is possible you could have a shorted pin on the latter that would prevent it from working, even though the ICSP pins are fine. The most probable place to check is on the processor itself, the legs are close together and sometimes there might be a bridge between them, try to look at it with a magnifying glass if you have one.
It's true that prior to loading the sketch the LEDs will not behave in the normal Scout manner, however, the red LED is connected to the same pin as the default LED on stock Arduinos, and this typically will blink even with only the bootloader, at the very least when first powered up, but I seem to recall it blinks at about a rate of once per second. So if the red LED does nothing at all it may be that the bootloader install was not successful.
I would go through the bootloader process again, making sure that you provide battery power to the Scout during the process, and making sure you have selected Arduino Nano as the target board.
It is also possible to load the sketch using the ICSP connection rather than FTDI, in the Arduino IDE go to Sketch -> Upload Using Programmer. This will over-write the bootloader if it is on there, so subsequent firmware loads will have to be done using the programmer unless you put the bootloader back on. But it might be something to try.
I suppose another possibility depending on where you got the ATmega 328P chips is that they could be counterfeits, this has been known to happen...
Pages: 1 ... 18 19 20 [21] 22 23 24 ... 78
|
Show Posts