Showroom FlyPT - 6DOF Brushless DIY Actuators

i use a standar motor ( whitout encoder)i need pot and pulley

Some tests to tune the rig with the new version of Mover:

That looks like it's getting there well done Sir!

thanks for making the videos. @pmvcda

i hope to start tuning and configuring next month. after a year of building, i am so close to finishing the 6DoF


btw, what does it mean when the acutator turns red, in your 3d viewer?

Im just testing the 3 Actuator Board with one actuator (define num act set to 1), the BLDC 8015A + 57BLF03and and have a strange behavior.

Starting the esp32 causes the Motor to spin a few turns and comes to a hard stop. After that, the ESP blinks a few times and the motor seems to go in calibration mode..

Pressing the maximum Switch: 22:22:41.886 -> Actuator 0: Minimum=0 Maximum=0

Any Idea what is going wrong and how to debug?

Are you using the latest code? Here-> https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...hless-diy-actuators.10799/page-18#post-186795

The behaviour should be:

1-With power disabled in the motor, you reset the ESP32, then give power to the motors.
2-It blinks 5 times in 5 seconds (the blue led), it's a timer before starting the calibration
3-The actuators move down, looking for the minimum switch. If you press the minimum, it goes to the next step.
4-Actuators move up looking for maximum switch. If you press maximum it goes to the next step.
5-Calibration ended and actuators move to the middle position (position zero) and wait for data from serial.

This is the behaviour in the latest code.

Having 0 at minimum and maximum is not normal. Some connection is wrong.
WARNING, the reset of the ESP sends wrong info to the BLDC8015A, making the motor move until the ESP32 ends the boot, so you should keep it without power until the ESP32 boots

The latest v11 code is different. At first motors move up to the maximum point then go down to the minimum and they stay there wait for serial. When mover software is connecting they move to the midpoint or what the pose wants.
It works well for me much better than before.
But there was a negative positive direction problem in the code made me issues and @Flymen too.
Look this and try it.

@ReBorn ,

If what @Gabor Pittner says works for you, please give me feedback.
I might have to change the code. I'm inducing people in error. Sorry.

Really need to review everything here.
Been busy with the new version of Mover.

By the way, don't know if I can make it for 2.9, but at least in the next one we are going to have PID control for my board in Mover.
It will be possible to adjust PID real time. Something I find really useful, that I had in the old software.

Thanks for all the tips, from all of you. Been trying to get this to work today.

So I soldered the circuit together, for the 3 actuator design, testing it with one actuator with the latest code posted above but with the actuator count changed from 3 to 1.

Had an issue with the min and max switches so used the switch testing code to see what the value given was. When neither were pressed it would give me 0, min switch would be 0 and max switch was 4095.
Changed the resistors to the design by @Flymen and I now get min - 0, max - 4095 and no switch pressed moves from 1847 to 1872 so I understand that this is the correct behaviour.

So now when I test it on an actuator the slider moves to the max, when it presses the max switch it doesn't stop and goes off of the end of the actuator. Any ideas why or how to troubleshoot?
I followed the steps by @pmvcda above and it seems to follow the first two steps but then moves up not down. I'm not powering the motor before the ESP32 finishes the blue LED blinking.
Now if I manually press the bottom switch after it has pressed the top switch it stops going up, it doesn't seem to change direction after triggering the top switch. I get the following in Arduino IDE monitor,
Actuator 0: Minimum=192 Maximum=-192 (if I take longer to press the bottom switch the numbers are larger.

I've also tried the code change posted above about the positive negative direction change but had no effect, the actuator still just went up.

Also my ESP32 on outputs 4.8v on the Vin pin, could this be an issue or cause some thing else?

Thanks for your help.

Edit - Fixed Now

"So I've tried also using the resistor setup recommended by @Gabor Pittner, same results as before.

Having looked in more detail the issue seems to be the F/R pin, it is always outputing 4.8v even once the maximum switch has been triggered. When I remove the F/R wire from the BLDC and manually ground the F/R pin the motor turns in reverse. Guessing this could be a wiring issue so will double check what is happening unless anyone has any other ideas?"

So I tried the above. Then I changed pin on the ESP32 and still had same effect. So then I changed the logic level shifter and now works.

If anyone has similar issues look at this first. ha

Thanks

Im happy to hear that.
But it looks you haven't change the code what I mentioned before, doesn't it? Does it work now correctly?
(You know putting the negative sign in there.)

Good, so do you think it was the level shifter?

I put the negative sign in, after calibration it the would go below the minimum switch and hit the motor mount. Without it the actuator went to the mid position.

It was indeed the level shifter. It wasnt working on the pin that controlled the direction. Once I switched that out it has worked great.

Can now control the actuator by the mover software so just need to make 5 more actuators and work out how the software side works. Have no clue about that side of things here.

Will start my own thread on my build though.

Thanks

After calibration, actuators stay at the minimum with v11 code:

Code:

// Put actuators in the minimum after calibration (for easy access to the rig)
  for (int n = 0; n < NUMBERACTUATORS; n++) actuator[n][PRETENDED_POSITION] = actuator[n][MINIMUM_POSITION];

If motors go to the midpoint then you already connected with mover software, and the mover controls that.

@pmvcda I totaly confused with that direction problem. How could it happen with me and @Flymen, and doesn't with @Richh999 ??

Until I put that negative sign, motors never stopped didn't matter I pressed limit switches or didn't.
Is it with the hal sensors order problem perhaps? I checked them several times I connected them as it is on the schematic white to white green to green and blue to blue.

Sound of the rig working...

Thank you Guys!!

Found the issue. It was not related to the code and v11 does work as it is. My min switch did send 0 all the time. I just needed to add an additional resistor between COM of the MAX switch and NC of the MIN switch to get rid of 0 all the time.

Crap... I am obviously doing something wrong. My ball screw did just shoot out the top of the actuator.

Calibration did work fine and the actuator stayed at the min position. The moment I clicked on connect in mover 2.8 the actuator moved across the max switch and ripped the ball screw of... Let's see if I am able to salvage this after I found all the tiny balls.

But I have no idea what happened...

Edit.: maybe I should mention that the actuator moved up first and then down while calibrating.. Shouldn't it be first down and then up?

Did you put 15 bits in the rig definition?

Nope.. 8 bits... Didn't change any settings except I played around with the serial speed. It should be the same speed as in the code I suppose?

The code in the ESP32 expects to receive 15 bits values. The 8 bits might have sent the actuator to a strange position!

I mean 15 bits in the rig module
not in the output module

Can you show me a picture of the rig and output modules windows?