Showroom **RIP** - 6DOF project using 12v DC Motors, Sabertooth 2x60's (was MM's) and Arduinos + OSW

Everything here somewhere don't know off top of my head sorry.

Thanks @SeatTime, will 22000uf caps do the trick ? I'll put one on each of the psu's just before the MM.

I will quote you twice because I can't believe you are asking what voltage the motors are ??? Your either being really lazy or just can't be arsed to read things pretty much mean the same thing I suppose

Hi @SilentChill sorry just read this properly , Seatime beat me 2 it , I had a couple of instances during early testing where the one of the 2 parallel 12V 56 Amp server supplies would trip ( orage LED instead of 2 greens ) on each unit , im guessing that's an error code , anyways I stuck a 12V car battery in parallel to act as a buffer but in my last lot of heavy testing I did not have the battery connected and I suffered no dropouts hmmmmm so not really what your looking for as answer , but I will say 15 - 20 Amps drawn absolute max at the moment under heavy punishment by each actuator (That'll be my bad driving) and the PSU's seem to be holding up well , hope you get it sorted soon mate and that its something trivial and those beast of motors are great , I expected more current draw but so far all the elements of the system seem in a good zone, You'll get there , I had a few blue air moments but will be worth it ,, you know as you have already had a taste with the MK 1 6DOF Hang in there

Little test, only got motor power on 150 in smc3 it works just gotta figure out what's tripping the power.

@wannabeaflyer2 I have 6x 55amp power supplies so it shouldn't trip unless like @SeatTime says they just don't like the hard reverses. Tried the caps they didn't work at all.

I will get there I'm sure

What kind of motor did you use if I may know?

Missed this post !! Maybe I should look at getting some. DO you think 33AMP ones will be okay as they are only about £15 each, if I run them in parallel they should work ok.

@wannabeaflyer2 just FYI I am hitting peaks over 50amps on the hard reverses are you sure your clamp meter is working properly or is it mine lol

Hi @SilentChill great to see the rig and actuators working . There are obviously differences between how the power supplies saw your old motors as a load compared to your new motors. I was hoping the filtering may help you, but obviously not. Do you own/can borrow, a storage oscilloscope to capture/review any line impulses (possibly compare against old motors) ? I'm sure I'm stating the obvious, but it must be something specific to your new motors as your old ones worked fine....

HIi @SilentChill LOL funny you should say that about the Amp meter , I don't fully trust this one to be honest but its buried in the system and have recently bought a stand alone clamp meter so will compare the results , Mate Massive Congratulations on a seriously rapid build and great work , made my day seeing your rig up and running . small steps mate but well worth the journey , impressive stuff already and its still early days ..way to go that Man

nice work!

Your work really did great help for inspiring me

Hi @SilentChill , if you have a 12VDC lead acid batter available, I would give that a try, as I've had good success in the past on other projects. It will smooth the current better (not just the voltage) then most capacitors, which can be helpfull when driving a motor.

Hi @SeatTime I got the 30amp LED PSU's and they work perfectly in parallel no more cut outs at all

SCHOOL BOY ERROR ALERT !!!!

1 problem I have had I decided to wire my MM's up wrong and blew 6 out of 12 in about 30 seconds lol I had been using 6 singles and then decided to add the other 6 after testing was ok, thing is I forgot to move the wires to use them as a half bridge each causing short circuits oooops - ALWAYS CHECK WIRING AND THEN CHECK AGAIN

2nd problem I had taken 2 actuators off and propped the rig up with a piece of wood, i then decided to lean on it and the whole thing crashed to the ground knackered the ends of the carbon tubes, totally wiped out 2 pots and luckily never damaged any electrics underneath, so I have spent last couple of days repairing everything,one good thing the actuators never snapped or bent when the platform landed on top of them so that shows they are pretty damn strong. - DONT BE A CLUMSY IDIOT

3rd minor problem my brackets for the rose joints are too long causing flex in the wood so i need to cut and weld them shorter. Silly mistake again but I will get there. - MEASURE AND MEASURE AGAIN BEFORE YOU CUT

3 stupid lessons learnt, I don't want anymore lol

Wow, your having a run of bad luck, maybe get the Wife to keep an eye on you . Yea, I spent the money on LED power supplies from day 1, as they have a very rudimentary protection system which is not as sensitive to motor loads/spikes as Computer power supplies - never had an issue. All you have to do now is get some serviceable MMs .

Ok so it turns out I had wired everything up correctly. Problem I had was wrong SMC3 settings, the actuators were slightly seeking for the Pot constantly and making a lot of noise in turn overheating the MM's (at least that's my theory). I have had to use KI never used it before, I set it to 5 and now the yellow power bar is pretty smooth when sat in the neutral position. Fingers crossed I have solved that problem

I'm in awe of your work. Very inspirational. Love the use of wood.

Wahou very good job !!!

Hi @SeatTime @wannabeaflyer2

Have you 2 got any problems with the motors making noise all the time. ? I am really struggling to stop it. My pots seem fine no interference the green line is perfectly smooth . I can't use KI in smc3 as it makes the actuators hesitant/jerky going up and down.

I can stop it using dead zone but as soon as I move the motors it's a horrible screeching noise with little moves and obviously I would miss the fine movements.

Running 250pwm max 200 max reverse and 550kp everything else at 0. MM's running at 20khz. tried changing the fpid and that doesn't make any difference just the tone of the noise.

It's just not quit getting to the absolute pot position which is making it make the noise and it's doing my nut in lol

Maybe there could be some fine tweaking in the smc3 code I could do to get it to move that extra couple of millimetres .

Will try again tonight see if I can solve it

Sometimes a motor will make a small holding noise when the whole rig is stopped, but is not that noticeable and goes away when the rig is in motion. Note that both myself and @wannabeaflyer2 are using the 1280. Although when I was using a Arduino, don't remember it being that noticeable. Do you have noise on your feedback line?

Thanks @SeatTime, no I don't have any noise on the feedback line it's fine . I will post a picture and a video later.

Another thing that's seems strange is when I use the PSU's in paralell I can only have 1 motor from each Arduino in parallel which means only 3 psu's can be linked up.

When I have 2 together on 1 arduino it seems to some how sort circuit the MM, how this is possible I have no idea ???