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  Discussions  Serializer Robot Controller  trouble with DC...
 trouble with DC motors
 
 9/18/2007 7:06:13 PM
Ted
8 posts


trouble with DC motors
Hi,

We started building and testing our Traxter last week. The servo, IR and Blue toothe worked fine. But we encountered a problem with the DC motors. I order 4 motors, so I could test with more than 2 motors.

There is one motor which reacts to the command PWM 1:-50. PWM 1:50 does nothing. The other motors do nothing on port 1. On port two all motors do nothing.

Nothing means that they make a high beeping noise and the red led on the motors blinks. Firmware version is 1.4.1.

Switching motors and ports always leads to the same result. Therefore we don’t think that we broke the serializer or the motors.

But we don’t know what to do anymore. Can someone help us.

Thanks,

Ted
 9/18/2007 7:13:10 PM
ringo
36 posts


Re: trouble with DC motors

Try this and let me know what happens.

Disconnect all motors

Do "pwm 1:50 2:50"

Do the leds near the motor connection light up?

then do "pwm 1:-50 2:-50"

Do the leds light up the other color?

If this part looks like it works then attache the motors and try it again and let me know exactly what the leds do.

 

Also, what kind of battery are you using? Voltage, capacity, type, ect.

 

Ringo

 

 

 

 


Ringo Davis, Hardware Technical Lead RoboticsConnection.com
 9/20/2007 12:32:25 PM
Ted
8 posts


Re: trouble with DC motors
Hi Ringo,

Thanks for the info, but i was wrong. My observations were not correct. If I had tried harder, I would have stated the following:

there seems to be not enough power to drive the motor's al lower speeds. De boundrary is about speed 50. Under that speed, the motor does not start and beeps. One motor is able to start moving at that speed at one port. Above 50 alle motors on all port work fine. Therefore my conclusion is dat a) my Serializer has a little defect, b) the motors (standard Traxter motors (Hennkwel HG37D) are to heavy for the Serializer, or c) I need more than one (standard Traxter) batteries to power the Serialzer.

I think option b), since on the site of Henkwell, the motors of the HG37 series are all described as taking 6VDC to 24VDC. I'm not sure though, since the label on the motors says 7,2Volts, and since the HG37D type is not on the website.

What's your opinion? And how can I solve this problem?

Thanks,

Ted
 9/20/2007 12:52:46 PM
ringo
36 posts


Re: trouble with DC motors

ok, maybe I understand your problem now. When you say they do not move at PWM value of 50, will they move at higher values? If so then nothing is wrong. I've never paid attention to exactly where the threshold is where the motor starts. PWM is simply a percentage of the time the motor is turned on. At a PWM value of 50 the motor is on 50% of the time and off 50% of the time. Every motor has a threshold where it will get enough power to start turning. It depends on the efficiency of the motor and the voltage applied. So if you took a little Radio shack motor rated at 1.5V it would probably turn on at a pwm value of 10. Likewise if you increase the voltage from 9.6V to 12V your Traxter motors would start at maybe 40 instead of 50. So if your motors turn slowly at pwm of 60 or 70 then that is fine. They should go pretty well at 99 or 100. Please let me know if this is the case.

Every motor you buy is unique, so the 4 you have will probably start at lightly different values. This is why it is so hard to make a robot drive in a straight line. That is exactly why we have included all the PID functionality into the serializer. while 1 motor may go faster than another even if both have a PWM value of 70, once you connect the encoders and use the MOGO command the motor ll travel at the same speed. The MOGO command issues a PWM command, then checks the speed, modifies the PWM, checks the speed, ........ in order to keep the motors at the speed you want, even with motor variation.

I hope this helps, please let me know.

Ringo

 

 


Ringo Davis, Hardware Technical Lead RoboticsConnection.com
 9/20/2007 1:22:32 PM
Ted
8 posts


Re: trouble with DC motors
That is exactly what I meant. I said it was stupid that I didn't try it last week. I don't know why. Problably because I was following instructions a little to literally.

Do you know where I can find the technical data on the motors?

And thanks for the info in MOGO! I understand the problem! I will finish the robot today and that start studying the .NET libs.

And then another question: the EBox 2300 JSK is removed from you website, although Jason mentioned starting to sell it. Is that because there's some kind of trouble? Does the Ebox com with an preinstalled disk?

Thanks again!

Ted

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