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Junior Member
 
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Last Login: Thursday, June 25, 2009 7:25 PM
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| Just curious if anyone has used rc failsafe units to make sure the robot stops if you lose connection with the serializer for some reason. I plan on buying some soon and would like to know if anyone has had any issues when using them with the serializer.
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: Friday, April 22, 2011 6:18 PM
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No, I dont use RC. However, it has been mentioned before and
Jason says Roboticsconnection will implement failsafe in
next Serializer software version.
Don Lewis
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Junior Member
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| Any update on the progress of the failsafe feature?
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: Monday, October 31, 2011 9:18 PM
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| Yes, I looked at adding a failsafe heartbeat about 1.5 months ago before I got incredibly busy w/ a side job, and family life. What I found is that we are slap out of ROM in the Serializer, and to add it means having to remove some functionality. I'm considering removing the Stepper motor functionality to make room for the failsafe. This is because I don't think many customers use the stepper functionality, since you can only control one bipolar stepper motor controller, and the heartbeat is more important. I could still make older versions of the Serializer firmware available if stepper motor functionality is needed. Customer thoughts? Best Regards,
Jason Summerour
President,
Summerour Robotics Corporation
www.roboticsconnection.com
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Forum Guru
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| I would rather have heart beat than stepper motor support
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Supreme Being
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Supreme Being
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Hello Jason and Wingers,
I am for dropping stepper and implementing failsafe. How would you
make it failsafe? I see from use that when the serializer app is using
Pump Events or Timer. the serial port is constantly busy and that
could be monitored.
HOWEVER!!!
I plan to implement a different embedded controller that wont run
serializer services library and will manually and randomly be peeking
and poking the serializer for I/O. Sometimes the serial bus will be
quiet. I thought about this and conclude the serializer will have to send
a "are you there" msg with a variable poll rate to the embedded controller.
What have you guys come up with for a universal solution?
thank you,
Don Lewis
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Supreme Being
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| Don, I'm basically thinking that we'll use the internal WatchDog timer. If it doesn't get updated often enough (e.g. the Serializer doesn't get a command within a set time period), it will simply turn the motors off. We'll add a 'heartbeat' command that can be sent to reset the WDT, but I think I'll also allow any other commands that are successfully received act like heartbeats as well. So, if your app isn't sending any typical query or control commands down faster than every 500msec(?), then you would need to send a heartbeat command down to keep the WDT from going off, and turning the motors off. If it does go off, and the motors stop, then it would reset on the very next command, and you'll be good to go. I think I will also add a command to allow customers to configure how short or long the WDT reset timeout is too.  Best Regards,
Jason Summerour
President,
Summerour Robotics Corporation
www.roboticsconnection.com
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Forum Member
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Last Login: Saturday, August 14, 2010 12:06 PM
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Jason,
The WDT sounds great. An additional command, similar to PIDS, would be great to be able to poll the Serializer and see if we've come up in a cold-start or if we're restarting due to a WDT timeout, etc. (like "get rst" for get reset status and it would return 0 for no reset/normal/operating, 1 for cold boot (i.e., power first applied), 2 from RESET command (or restore, etc.--a warmstart reset), and 3 from a WDT timeout). This would allow us to adjust our coding according to the reset state.
Thanks,
--Scott Thompson
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Forum Member
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Last Login: Saturday, August 14, 2010 12:06 PM
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Another option I may be implementing is a SCR or MOSFET power switch that can get a signal from my attached ATMega1280 board (attached via I2C) that would kill power to the 'bot if it didn't get a refresh every once in awhile. This may be implemented since I'm going to likely have to create a power management system due to my using a 12.8V LiFePO4 battery.
Is this hardware kill switch the type of RC safety method mentioned earlier?
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