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Messages - LukeZ
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1156
« on: January 14, 2017, 05:00:05 PM »
- Download and compile OPConfig source code to review from GitHub: Still looking around for my old Qt license!
Holy moly, you really are jumping in the deep end!  I applaud you sir. As you mentioned the sound unit, I can volunteer that I purchased my TBS directly from Thomas and at the time I don't think I could have gotten it any cheaper from a US source. I will also volunteer for what it's worth that my current open source sound card development is using a PJRC Teensy 3.2, Prop shield, SD card shield, and a simple carrier board. The hardware needs to be simplified but this works for testing. [ EDIT: That is what I'm using for testing now, but please don't follow along yet, or worse, buy any of these components. I have a strong suspicion some of these pieces are going to need to be changed.] I will attempt to start a thread soon about this project for anyone to follow along with and contribute to. The hardware is basically all off-the-shelf other than the carrier board, which doesn't really do much and could simply be bread-boarded. In the absence of a TCB people could still use a standard Arduino Mega for the purposes of sound card development. But I am only in the earliest stages now and I need to get some things organized first before posting them...
1157
« on: January 14, 2017, 04:45:26 PM »
Don't feel bad vonT, I consider myself in some ways a digital dinosaur as well (I have never owned a smartphone for example). And using HTML in a forum post was only a mistake someone makes who knows too much, not too little. You and I have had the exact same idea with regards to testbeds. For the last seven years I have been using a PZIII which, while reliable beyond expectation, is really too small. I've since done the same as you, ordered a Taigen Tiger 1 lower chassis to which I will fit plastic wheels and tracks. If you don't mind sharing I'd be curious to know what sort of embedded work you have done. With any sort of formal education, or even just the long experience you possess, my coding practices may seem unusual - or maybe not, I guess I don't know. I often wonder if I've missed context, perspective or sense of proportion from self-education, but it's hard to know what you missed if you don't what you missed!
1158
« on: January 14, 2017, 02:26:34 PM »
It occurred to me that now, prior to physical release of the TCB, some people may have already on hand an Arduino Mega. The TCB uses the same processor as the Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) so the firmware will compile just fine on that board. If you have an iBus or PPM receiver, you can connect it to your Arduino Mega with 3 pins (PPM to Mega pin 3, or iBus to Mega pin 15). Unfortunately SBus uses an inverted serial protocol, and before the processor can read this information the signal has to be "un"-inverted. This requires a transistor and two resistors which are on the TCB board but of course absent on the Arduino Mega. If you want to implement this transistor inverter yourself see the TCB schematic, it is very simple and most any basic transistor would work (the SBus signal would also go to Mega pin 15). But otherwise, stick with iBus or PPM receivers. The Sabertooth can be connected to your Mega with two pins. Additionally you could also hook up a Benedini TBS Mini to the Mega with only a few jumpers. See the diagrams below, the first shows only a receiver and Sabertooth, the second adds the Benedini. You don't need to use the Arduino editor for any of this. Important Circuit Info: You will notice in the diagrams below we have Arduino pins A12 and 33 connected to ground. On the actual TCB board these pins are assigned to physical switches. Pin A12 is Dipswitch 5 and we set it to ground in order for the TCB to know it should be communicating over USB rather than an alternate serial port. Pin 33 is the Fight/Repair switch and we set it to ground in order that the TCB remain in Fight mode. This one doesn't really matter so much for the testing done here but Repair mode can have some confusing side effects without all the rest of the circuit present, so just jumper it to ground. - Plug your Arduino Mega into your PC using a USB cable.
- Launch OP Config (download it here)
- Select the COM port assigned to your Mega
- Go to the Firmware tab of OP Config, click the "Get Latest Release" button, and then click the "Flash" button. After this process is complete, your Mega is running TCB firmware.
- You should now be able to connect to your Mega using the "Connect" button in OP Config.
- If you have a receiver connected, you should also be able to run through Radio Setup.
- Make sure Drive Motor type is set to "Sabertooth Serial ESC" on the Motors tab of OP Config.
- Create some function triggers if you like, and adjust any other driving settings you might like.
- Write settings to your Mega using the blue arrow button.
- Drive your tank around like a boss!
Other Helpful Threads:Sergey's Open Panzer TCB From Scratch - on Russian site, but Google translate works very well. Sergey's thread here on the OP Forum - with not as much detail as the Russian thread. Edit: I've added also another diagram even more detailed from user jhamm (Jürgen) showing connections to a Mega Pro Mini, but the pin numbers are the same for the standard Mega.
1160
« on: January 14, 2017, 12:48:02 AM »
vonTirpitz, welcome, and thank you for starting the first real thread of this entire website! And thank you for being interested enough in this project to document your experiences. I've just come in late and I won't write much tonight. But a few thoughts - - If you are new to this project and have just stumbled onto this thread, realize that you don't need to get involved with coding, Arduino, or any of this other stuff to enjoy the TCB.
- But if you are like vonTirpitz and want to get under the hood, great! We definitely need developers.
- vonT, try reading through again the introductory section of the GitHub page where you downloaded the project: GitHub TCB. The reason Arduino is giving you errors when compiling is that it thinks you are trying to compile for the "Genuino Uno" board, but the code is designed for the TCB board. The TCB is based on the Arduino Mega board which uses a different processor. So in the Arduino IDE go to the Tools menu, then Boards, then select Arduino Mega, and it should compile.
- Now actually the TCB uses a slightly modified arrangement of the Mega than Arduino knows about, so if you really want to do it right you need to edit Arduino's "boards.txt" file and add a new entry for the TCB. Instructions for this are at the link I posted above.
As for inserting hyperlinks into your posts - for security reasons this forum (and all other forums) ignore HTML. Instead the forum uses something called BBC, which stands for Bulletin Board Code. So rather than using html tags, to insert a hyperlink do this instead: [url=www.google.com]Google[/url]. Then the forum will render it as Google. BBC is standard across pretty much every forum you might encounter so once you get the hang of it then you can use it anywhere. You can also just highlight the text you want to make a link in your message, then click on the little globe icon in the message editor and it will help you create the link. There are actually two editing modes - advanced (where you have to enter the BBC yourself), or standard (where when you click on the buttons in the editor it does things for you). You can toggle the editing mode when posting by clicking the button that has an icon of an arrow within brackets. See the image below. Here's a page with more detail on all the BBC codes. More later!
1161
« on: January 12, 2017, 11:26:19 AM »
Erik, the final version is actually Rev 10 and I think the one you have is probably 8 or 9 (it should say on the bottom of the board). The Rev 10 files are on the Downloads page, the main difference is that it is slightly wider to make room for a 3-pin JST-PH serial plug instead of the 2-pin on the version you have. If you don't have Eagle I can make up a dimensional diagram and post it soon. You can also always buy a bare board from OSH Park and then you have the physical thing in your hands if that helps (it's about $24 shipped for three). I've tried sticking screw holes on the far side several times but there's no good way to do it without significantly increasing the board size. Maybe it's worth doing, I don't know... with a case it would seem the extra screw holes might actually be less important than without a case.
1162
« on: January 11, 2017, 08:28:11 PM »
This forum is for discussion of ongoing development of an Open Panzer sound device - in other words, the creation of new firmware and hardware. If you have general questions about operating your existing Open Panzer products, or need help with a problem or bug, please post in the Open Panzer Help forum instead.
1163
« on: January 11, 2017, 08:26:11 PM »
This forum is for discussion of ongoing development of the Scout ESC - in other words, changes to the firmware or hardware, or alternate ESC designs. If you have general questions about operating your Scout, or need help with a problem or bug, please post in the Open Panzer Help forum instead.
1164
« on: January 11, 2017, 08:25:06 PM »
This forum is for discussion of ongoing development of the TCB - in other words, changes to the firmware, hardware or OP Config. If you have general questions about operating your TCB, or need help with a problem or bug, please post in the Open Panzer Help forum instead.
1165
« on: January 11, 2017, 01:18:16 PM »
January 10, 2017 - Great news! Hobby King has decided to produce and sell the TCB. This is a very generous move on their part as they are funding completely the manufacturing costs and undertaking all the financial risks. Hobby King has a long history of supporting open source projects and we're excited to be working with them! Availability is tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2017. The final price price has not yet been announced but when we know more we'll post it here. We are still shopping the Scout ESC around to various places but nothing definitive yet.
1166
« on: December 17, 2016, 04:56:43 PM »
On your TODO list, have you considered hooking the telemetry into OpenTX for the Taranis radios? It could make pre-battle easier to setup and verify. This is certainly a possibility. Strategically I think for roughly the same effort development of a telemetry app for smartphones could benefit more end users. Not everyone has a Taranis, or is using OpenTx with it, or wants necessarily to mess with programming on their radio - but everyone already has a smartphone (ironically except myself). On the other hand, the OpenTx/Taranis community consists of precisely the sort of smart, experienced, computer-savy RC hobbyists that this project needs, and if OpenTx integration got them involved or served as a gateway for those people into the world of open source RC tanks, it would be well worth it. I've added this to the list. By the way - congrats on being the first user and the first one to post!
1167
« on: December 17, 2016, 01:19:18 PM »
December 6, 2016 - After several years of internal development, it's time to hand this project over to the "community" - a community which maybe doesn't yet exist, but we hope will come into being soon. It is important for you to know, that as of today there is no way for you to purchase any of our products, unless you want to build them yourself. Although we have made dozens of prototypes, assembly is simply too time-consuming and complicated to make these by hand for sale in any quantity and right now there is no manufacturer lined up for production. The original intent was not to publicize the project until people could actually purchase the TCB - if you can't get one, what's the point? But getting a manufacturer to invest a substantial amount of money in a production run, without knowing the potential demand ahead of time, is a tough sell. Talks are ongoing with several different manufacturers but so far none have made a firm commitment, and I can't predict when or if any will. So it is time to take the opposite approach - make the project public, let people examine and discuss the capabilities of the Open Panzer project, and let things take their course. Everything we design is completely open source. If you are a manufacturer and want to produce these boards, all the designs and bill of materials are freely available on our Downloads page. Have at it! We do ask that you respect the copyright and maintain attribution. To the tankers and hobbyists - I created this project because this is what I wished existed when I started building model tanks. I hope you like it. Please read through the Wiki to see what we've made and start some conversations in the forums if you have questions. Please remember that like the rest of you my time in this project is volunteered, and no one (so far!) has paid me anything. The work accomplished to date is my gift to the RC community, given freely. I will continue to invest in, advocate for, and lead development, but the future of Open Panzer belongs to you! LukeZ
1168
« on: December 06, 2016, 06:58:31 PM »
In no particular order of importance, here are some items that might be nice to add. If you want to take on one of these projects, feel free to start a thread on a single topic. - Smartphone Integration: In a dream world we'd have the equivalent functionality of the OP Config program in a phone app. But perhaps a more achievable starting point would be the creation of a simple telemetry app to read parameters from the TCB over bluetooth. Presently the TCB spits out all kinds of information when the Debug option is set, none of which are formatted in any consistent way, but a true telemetry protocol could easily be implemented. What we need is someone with app-writing skills to create the display interface.
- OpenTx Telemetry: Another option for delivering telemetry to the user is integration with OpenTx (and potentially other open source transmitter firmwares such as ersky9x). Smartphone telemetry may be more broadly useful but either one would be cool and neither precludes the other.
- Barrel stabilization: various ways to skin the cat on this one. A considerable amount of work was already done using the Adafruit BNO055 9-DOF IMU, there is also a lot of code in the main sketch currently commented out that handles the barrel stabilization and even simulating up and downhill gravity. The big issue: the default communication protocol used by the sensor is I2C and the default Arduino I2C library (called Wire) is "blocking" - meaning it uses delays for communication timing, delays during which other code can't run. This is a really poor implementation that simply won't work with the TCB. Attempts to create a non-blocking I2C library were ultimately unsuccessful, hence the reason these features are presently disabled. Other options would be to use the same sensor in serial mode and communicate over Serial 1 (Aux) port. This is possible but needs a substantial bit of code written since there is no serial library available for the BNO055. Another option I've considered is to offload entirely the barrel stabilization to another processor - combine a cheap Arduino Nano/Mini/Trinket/Digispark/whatever with an inexpensive fusion sensor like the MPU-9250 and have it connect inline with the barrel elevation servo. This is essentially what Squirlier's StabiWii project does, but his project is not straightforward to implement for various reasons including poor documentation.
- Accel/decel presets: See the Inertia & Momentum section of the Wiki for a discussion of presets, and check out the comments in the OP_Driver library, specifically under the GetDriveSpeed function in OP_Driver.cpp, where two example presets are given, one for acceleration and one for deceleration. Creating a preset is not difficult, making it "feel" like a specific drive response different from other settings is the part that takes lots of trial and error. For example the two presets already coded I don't think make a huge different to the end user when you enable them.
- Two-stick Control: In which each tread is operated by independent channels on the transmitter, and "mixing" for steering is accomplished by the user's thumbs. I have decided it does not make sense to integrate this feature, the simplest reason being that you do not need the TCB to accomplish it. Read this thread for more.
- Gear Selection: See the Manual Transmission discussion thread for more. The manual transmission has already been implemented inasmuch as we can now select forward, reverse and neutral gears and use the throttle stick only as a speed command rather than also a direction input. But we could possibly get more fancy and allow multiple forward and reverse gears (speeds) to be selected, along with synchronized engine sounds and potentially other realistic effects.
- OP Config compiled for Mac: OP Config is written in Qt and theoretically it is possible to compile it for other operating systems besides Windows. I don't have a Mac environmnet in which to test this, nor am I interested in learning Mac-talk. But if someone has a Mac, and is familiar with Qt, please feel free to compile a version for that OS.
- Better Function Assignments in OP Config: The TCB function list has now risen to over 100, and that's getting to be a lot to scroll through in a single drop-down box. A better way of selecting those might be nice, even if just perhaps adding a prior drop down to pre-select a category or group of functions. The other thing that makes this process tedious is the fact that aux radio channels are listed by number ("Aux Channel 6") which isn't very informative; it might be nice to give aux channels names like "Top left knob" that would then appear in the trigger list. However this raises other issues since those names would need to be saved somewhere, but probably couldn't conveniently be saved on the TCB itself due to memory constraints. So that is a complication for sure.
- Ability to Edit Function-Triggers in OP Config: Right now if you change your mind about a Function-Trigger pair in OP Config you have to delete it and add the modified pair to the list. It would be nice to be able to click on an existing pair and have the ability to edit either the trigger or the function.
- Test Mode in OP Config: Provide the ability to initiate any feature of the TCB (and Scout and Sound Card) from OP Config while connected with USB, for example have a list of actions such as Fire Cannon or Turn On Light 2, etc... This would allow the user to test TCB features independent of a radio. This feature would require a major re-organization of the TCB firmware and is unlikely to be accomplished in my lifetime. The firmware changes would not be as bad for the Scout and Sound Card since those can already be controlled via serial commands, but then again those devices are not presently even available so the time investment for such features on their behalf is negligible.
- Support for other Serial Controllers: Although more expensive than the Scout/Sabertooth controllers, and offering extra features that don't benefit anything when used with the TCB, there are two classes of controllers that could nevertheless be used with the TCB if libraries were written for them: MotionControl RoboClaw controllers (dual line only), and Pololu TReX controllers.
- Dual cannons: It was suggested here to create dual cannon functionality. If you want two synchronized cannons, this is already possible, but multiple independent cannons are not presently implemented.
- Expanded IR Battle: Although it would not be compatible with the Tamiya standard, it is possible to create alternative "damage" effects during IR battle other than simply a reduction in drive speed. For example speed reductions that affect the left/right treads unequally, or the ability to steer or move in only a single direction, even turret mobility can be be "damaged." These effects could be mixed in semi-randomly with the generic speed reduction profiles to add some diversity and interest. On this topic a community discussion would be useful to set the parameters and brainstorm ideas.
- Track recoil: Done, see here for details.
- Manual transmission: Done, released with firmware version 0.92.13, see here for more details.
1169
« on: December 06, 2016, 04:08:39 PM »
Posting GuidelinesTo post on the forum you must be a registered user. To help prevent spam, new users will be required to pass a visual verification and answer a question before their post is allowed. I know this is a pain in the butt! But the requirement automatically disappears once you have reached a few posts. For those who don't know, the English word for Panzer is tankHow to get Questions Answered- Read the Wiki!
- Did you really read the Wiki?!
- Post your question in the appropriate forum.
- Do NOT send a PM (private message) or email to admins or moderators! Unless they specifically tell you otherwise, moderators will provide no support via PM. Questions and answers written in a private message only benefit the two people communicating, no one else. The entire point of the forum is to provide knowledge for everyone who visits, now or some day in the future. By posting your question here and having it answered publicly, you can help others who will have the same question in the future.
1170
« on: December 06, 2016, 04:02:49 PM »
The Scout ESC in its current state is fully functional with the TCB, general RC radios, and other microcontrollers. There are however always things that can be added, here is a list: - Add serial commands 6-13 and 16-17 compatible with Sabertooth protocol (low resolution commands, mixed-mode driving, ramping, and adjustable deadband): See this document for the Sabertooth reference: Sabertooth 2x12 Reference. These commands would not be used by the TCB and aren't useful for the Open Panzer project specifically, but could be used in robotics applications.
- Characterize empirically the board heat profile at various currents, and improve the fan control algorithm: presently the board will engage the fan when onboard temperature measurement reaches 40*C (~100*F) and the fan will reach full speed by 70*C (~160*F). This range was selected somewhat arbitrarily and there is nothing intelligent about it. In all honesty, during our testing on 1/16 scale models we had a hard time drawing enough current to even get the fan to come on, implying the entire fan functionality is not perhaps really needed in most applications. A temperature-vs-current graph would be good information to have if someone can come up with a suitable current-draw test load.
- Test various fans and decide on a specific model: As mentioned before the fan rarely if ever comes on with the typical currents drawn by a 1/16th scale tank, so I've not done a lot of testing to find the ideal fan. The connector on the board is plug-and-play with standard 2-pin 40mm PC case fans. If someone does a temperature-to-current test it would be interesting to see how effective a fan is at cooling.
- Design a case: a case (3D printed or otherwise) would be nice, perhaps one with a fan mount.
As a reminder, here is the GitHub page for the Scout firmware. If you choose to add some code for #1 feel free to submit a pull request.
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