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SRV-1q and RoboRealm (Read 1913 times)
wheagy
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Posts: 64
SRV-1q and RoboRealm
12/23/08 at 3:10pm
 
I'm wondering if someone in this forum can help me.  I posted this on the RoboRealm forum too, but haven't received a solution.
 
I'm trying to control the SRV-1 motors using VB Script and some blob tracking.  I was getting very unpredictable behavior.  The motors didn't seem to spin the direction I thought they should.  So I simply loaded the SRV-1b module, by itself, in RR.  I made sure no variable was selected for the motors and tried controlling them with the sliders.  For some reason, it doesn't matter whether I move the slider left (lower value - reverse) or right (higher value - forward), the motors spin the same direction.  Sometimes it goes forward in both slider directions, sometimes reverse.  So, this seem to explain why I couldn't control the motors properly with VB script....no matter what motor value I send, the motors spin the same direction.  The motors function properly when using the arrow keys on the SRV-1 RR module...in other words, I think the robot is working properly, but I can't seem to get this feature of RR for control of the SRV-1 working properly.  Anyone else observe this with their SRV-1?  Any ideas?  The RoboRealm guys said they could not replicate this, but it is definitely happening.  Maybe some strange combination of RR version and my Blackfin firmware.  
 
I'm using ##Version - SRV-1 Blackfin - 10:49:01 - Nov 21 2008 (stereo slave) and 1.8.23.31 of RR.
 
Any ideas on a way to bypass the motor control of RoboRealm...just use it's image processing and maybe control the motors via a VB script?  Looking for something that is relatively straightforward.  The SRV and RR are both very new to me.
 
Thanks...Win
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Re: SRV-1q and RoboRealm
Reply #1 - 12/23/08 at 3:32pm
 
Steven of Roborealm pointed out the motor problem yesterday, and this led to the discovery of a bug in the setPWM() function of srv.c.  Basically, the direction signals of the two motors (PORTHIO bits 4 and 5 - 0x0300) were swapped in the driver.  Because of the motor settings we had been using, we didn't notice the problem.  However, we will post a firmware update in a couple of days that includes this fix.
 
Until you have updated firmware, you can kludge a fix by noting that the sign of the left motor value will set the direction of the right motor, and vice versa.
 
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« Last Edit: 12/23/08 at 3:34pm by admin »  

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wheagy
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Re: SRV-1q and RoboRealm
Reply #2 - 12/23/08 at 6:39pm
 
Nice!  Thanks!
 
Win
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