Tutorial SMC3 Arduino 3DOF Motor Driver and Windows Utilities

oh, start up and shut down commands are not necessary.

Bruce,

Thanx.

George

anyone here use IBT-2 with 24v dc motor ?

i want to change from my current 12v motor to 24v with the same motor spec (for lower the temperature)

ps. now i use MM with 12v motor and my country have only MM with IBT-2 for sale
ps2. dont talking about pololu and sabertooth its impossible to find here and there's many problem about shipping in my country

thanks.

Hi guys!

I have finished with my 2 motor motion stuff, but i have an issue:

When the motors are running at different directions, like "roll" movement, its OK,
but is they arre moving to the same dir, like "pitch", one of them (not always the same one)
stucks in one position, like its not enough power to reach the position. If I pull back it manually
the requested pos, its taking that pos, and working again for a few secs, after the issue
exists again.
Foe the "roll" movement, when they are moving in different, its OK.

Any ideas???

Regards,
George

Sounds like you need more drive to the motors or the seat is balanced front to back well enough?
Can you post pictures of your SMC3 settings?

@George Dobransky I had the same issue with my 2 dof. It's only happened a few times with the platform. I found I was causing this by overdriving or over working the motors at the given settings. So on an extreme direction change it would just sit there then when manually pushed towards target it would grab. There is a couple things you can try. Open tunning center (simtools) and soften the settings on the offending effect by raising the number. Also you can lower pid and duty cycle(smc3), this may be the wrong way and could need to be increased, you will have to test it. Another thing I noticed with my rig was turning Pwmreverse to 0 (smc3) helped minimize this condition.

Guys,

Thanx for the tips. Now my arduino board doesn't want to get any data, problems with uploading the code
again and doesn't driving the controllers... I have ordered now a new, genuine ard. board, so
now i have to wait until it arrives (apr. mid. nest week,)
Can the chinese ard board's USB driver do this issue???

I 'll refer if I get the new one.

Regards,
George

you might try a different usb port sometimes that helps. and yes the clones/copies can fail in a similar fashion so it may be dead.

Can you post a video and screenshot of your settings. It sounds like the POTs might not be fixed well to the motors, or maybe the PID settings are incorrect so it is oscillating but hard to say without more info.

Por las dudas te traduzco, @RufusDufus dice que puede ser que el potenciometro este mal agarrado al eje del motor, a lo cual yo agrego que es posible que este muriendose el potenciometro y marque mal. Subite si podes un video y screenshot de el seteo.

Just translating and adding that maybe the POT is dying

now i bought IBT-2 to replace my MM and i use hall effect sensor. dose it can reverse + ,- in motor wire ?

Hi Rufus!
I am currently using your great SMC3 solution with a 3DOF 24V IBT based platform.
SMC3Utils with Arduino works great.
SIMTools with SMCUtils with Arduino doesn't work: Connection seems correct, I can see the pks/sec counter alive in SMCUtils, but Target is not moving when I test the output with SimTools, and Arduino doesn't take any input. Any idea?
SIMTools with Arduino works on axis mode, not DOF mode, I have to dig about that.
Thanks for your feedback,
Nelson.

Windows only allows one application to connect to the serial port at a time therefore you cannot use Simtools and SMC3Utils together. SMC3Utils is intended for setting up the parameters, once you are happy with them shutdown SMC3Utils and start Simtools. All settings are saved in the arduino eeprom.

If you really want to see the game output in SMC3Utils then you have to set it up to connect to Simtools using UDP and select the passthrough option to pass the data to the arduino. It's not as straight forward and I wouldn't suggest doing it this way unless you have successfully had everything working through serial and comfortable with the setup approach.

If you need to reverse the motor (ie going in opposite direction to hall POT) then swap the wires to the motor.

Ok I didn't use the passthrough mode yet, was not sure about that. Simtools config is the same as for serial connection, except for IP address (which I set as 127.0.0.1) and UDP port as I understand. I 'll test that this evening, thanks for the fast reply!

Ok it works just right.
I had to reset SimmTools parameters and then set the axis to have the mixing functioning.
Great! Your softs are really great!
By the way we smoked some BTS boards while testing just by changing the motor direction a bit nervously. Does someone had the same experience with these cheap boards?
Nelson.

Hi Guys,

My moving stuff with mode1 moto monster shield was working for only 4-5 hours.
Then the moto shield went wrong. First motor 1 output, then 2 also.
I was using cooler board and vents also on the chips. Maybe tat controller was bad...
So what you suggest to me, the same mode1 MM shield or mode2 Hbridge solution?
For mode2 can I use the same PSU?

Cheers,
George

Yes I use these boards, the most important thing is to remove the heatsink and add some heatsink grease between heatsink and PCB, also add small heatsink direct to chip and keep cool.

If it worked and then failed during use the most probable cause of failure is too much current causing internal heating and failure. The mode has nothing to do with the problem as long as you are using the correct mode for the controller you use. You can try reducing PWMmax but depending on your rig that may reduce motion performance. Ideally you want the least power required to to drive the motors with enough torque to track the input signal. Any more than that and you are overdriving the motors/drivers for no reason.

how you paste your thermal compound ?