Tutorial SMC3 Arduino 3DOF Motor Driver and Windows Utilities

I think @Pit has a good point.. your PSU may not be powerful enough. A few things to try:

1. Connect a motor direct to the PSU (no H-Bridge) and see if it can start the motor - don't leave for long though
2. Try getting a small 12v DC motor from a toy or ebay and connect it to the H-Bridge instead of the winch motors. SMC will work exactly the same, just manually turn the POT to see the motors speed up and slow down as the target and feedback signals align.

I'll get a new car battery tomorrow and try it again.

@Outatime, I just noticed the screenshot of your settings. The PWMmax is way to low for normal operation. This is fine for testing to minimise damage to anything but you will probably need something at least 200 or more for winch motors.

I've found the solution.
The motor "brakes" (right to the lever wheel) on the winch motor was too tight. It stopped the motor from reversing. I have removed them.

Now it's working !
See pictures. Tried it with PWMmax 126 and PWMmax 207.

It's not exactly following the feedback line. Is that normal ?
What are the yellow peaks ?


The PSU was still working with PWMmax 126.
At PWMmax 207 it was working with the car battery only and followed the feedback line a lot better.

Thank you.

Well now there is the next problem.
The one motor is moving slower than the other. About 1/2 or 2/3 of the speed of the other.
I have changed the H-bridges (I have spares) = same result.

When I change the three H-bridge input pins
RPWM, LPWM, R_EN + L_EN
between the two bridges the other motor is slower which was faster first.

Same result in SimTools Game Engine output testing.

So the problem seems to be the input signal ?

It seems to be a SMC3 related "issue" - you are using "different" PWMmax values (motor 1 is not equal to motor 2). This is not a bug it is a feature...

if the power (PWMmax) is too low, the motor turns slower than the feedback line

Seek and you shall find...

Thank you all. Working correctly now !
It was my fault. I forgot to copy the PWM values from Motor 1 to Motor 2.

I alwalys did that before but not on my last tries.

My pleasure....

I'm very happy that my setup is working now.

@RufusDufus
Your tutorial on page 1 is very good but still got me noob stuggling on some parts.

After the last points of the Initial Setup I reduced all the PWMmax values back to 0 because I was aware of my motors.
I did not realise that all values were written live into the Arduino memory and stored there.

So I was trying out the SimTools Game Engine output mode and nothing happended because the values were zero. It drove me mad trying out several axis settings and interface settings without a result.
I thought SimTools is producing it's own values.

At first I sticked to the Game Engine because for me as a beginner the GUI looked easier and I hoped to get quick results out of it without having to try out so many SMC3 values.

It would be good to post a screenshot of the interface settings for SimTools for your SMC code too. I know the settings are in plain text on page 1 tutorial.




When I started with SMC3 this picture was not there:



On the first sight your SMC3 looked very confusing to me with all the strange values and opportunities.
I did not realise what the points "Out Mode" on the left bottom corner are doing.
I was afraid of doing something wrong to click somewhere and my motors would go mad.

Now after some time with the SMC3 tool I know what all the bullet points (sine, manual...) are doing and the program GUI is not that difficult.

But for beginners like me a detailed explanation would be fine.
For example:
Switch to "Manual" to move the selected motor with the slider on the right side.
Switch to "Motion" to get a motion simulator like output.

That were my thoughts on making the good tutorial a bit better for dummies like me.

Thanks for your help and program to make my motion sim possible.

Hi @hooshang ... I had that noise and I connected a 100nF capacitor between the feedback signal " center leg" and the ground ... every thing worked fine ever since

Hi @speedy
thank you friend but I already solved this problem using shield wire and ground everything
and now all noise gone and all seems to be smooth.
shokr to have such a good mate here like you,thank you friend
regards
Hooshang

Gent, it seems that I'am stuck on the 4th step of the SMC3 seeing the Arduino:



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)
What can I be doing wrong?

I have the SMC3.ino uploaded and it was successfull!

Any tipps for me? Much apprechiated!

SMC3 says you're using port 7 (lower right)
Check your settings again

Unfortunately still the same...
Arduino is visible properly for its own software and in device manager:

Firewall?

Turned firewall and virus protection off and still the same.
Is the SMC3 code supposed to look like this for me? Because the blink one look a hell lot diffrent and that is running fine on it:

Indeed that was the problem, for some reasone when opening up the file it did not display the code for me.
Now it is working

Is it normal if upon connection the utility and then testing only one motor moved?
It moved around PWMmax at 20-30, but ever since then I cant get it to move..
Both motors look like this now:



A bit lost now Where to go from here? Is there a general setting I might try?