Need help with SMC3

I'm trying to get my motors to respond but I don't really understand how to use SMC3. I have 2x 24v PSU's; 2x IBT2's 24v; 2x 75rpm, 24v, 250w motors; ard uno r3. Pots are 360 hall.

I've followed these steps as best I can For #6, I don't see a "Clip" or a "Limit". I have "Max Limits" and "Clip Input" so I set those to 255.

1. Disconnect the motor power supply
2. Make sure Simtools is not running – we’re not ready for that yet!
3. Wire up the Arduino (with SMC3 installed) to your H-Bridges and connect to your computer via USB
4. Run the Windows SMC3 Utility software and make sure it communicates with the Arduino (There is no need to set baud rates, they are not configurable)
5. Set the Kp, Ki, Kd, PWMmin, PWMmax, PWMrev to 0 for ALL motors (This will make sure the motors don’t move)
6. Set Clip to 255 (you need to do this first) and Limit to 255 (This will give you plenty of margin if something goes wrong while setting up)
7. Turn on the power to your motors – nothing should move at this stage!
8. Set Kp to about 400
9. Now slowly, increase PWMmax… at some point the motor should start to move. When it does check the “Green” feedback line is moving toward the “Blue” target position.
   • If it is then that motor and feedback is wired correctly - proceed to test other motors.
   • If it is moving away turn off motor power immediately (or quickly reduce PWMmax again). In this case you need to either reverse the wires to the motor being tested –OR– reverse the +5V and GND wires to your feedback pot for the motor being tested (do not do both). Restart the test from the beginning.
10. Do the above for each motor

My motors do nothing. They were initially "twitching" back and forth when I plugged in the uno but when I loaded up SMC3, they stopped. How do I proceed? Thanks so much.

Sorry, I set Mode 2 already.

I've read through those parameters several times, but I'm still not sure how to use them to get the motors to spin. It's not written for someone who isn't experienced in this stuff. For example, what is PID? Are my settings in the above ss correct?

Thanks Noor, I included those initial steps in the OP to indicate I had already done them. I apologize if that wasn't clear.

On a hunch, I disconnected the pot belts and sure enough, it's responsive now... I can make the green line move around by rotating the pot by hand and the motor goes one way or the other depending on which side of the neutral I'm on. So that's good news. Tomorrow I'll have more time to dive into the above info if needed.

I've got both motors and pots centered and they're responding as expected. I'm assuming SMC3 is writing these parameters to the ard? I can't find anywhere a description of what it actually does other than control the motors. The reason I need to know this is because I don't want the limits I've set to disappear if I'm not running SMC3 and put a hole in my floor and break off the pots.

So does SMC3 actually make changes to the ard or is it just to make sure the motors are moving correctly before going into SimTools?

Thanks, someone before told me SMC3 doesn't change the code which is what caused my confusion. Everything is working now, just doing lots of tweaking.

Hi Tim, I am building the same setup as yours.
I have looked at the tutorials and could not see anyone centering the lever arm (attached to the motor shaft).

My question is:
- is there a setting to centre the arm (so it has equal room to move up or down) and then zeroing the potentiometer and finally connecting all mechanical links?

- or do you disconnect the sensor belt, manually rotate the motor shaft to the centre position, zero the potentiometer and then connect everything?

My motors (similar to yours) are on their way and I'm not sure whether I can turn the shaft by hand as it has a gearbox.

Thanks.