Tronic's AMC motor motion-controller with pwm/servo output

Hi Fermevc,

Can I post this AMC+DSMHb manual to the fist page?? Its very good!!

Thanos

Dear Thanos, Fermevc

i'm very happy right now due to my amc1.5 was success to communicate with hyperterminal using crystal 18.43212 MHz as image below. thank you very much to Thanos and Fermevc for help. Now i'm still assembling the DSMHb and i hope for this week will be finished.
I have a question when i connect to X-sim profiler, my amc1.5 cannot detect as output interface. Did the DSMHb should always connected to amc in order to detect with x-sim profiler?



Thank you very much for your help
regard
definal

@Thanos
Sorry, was away and I saw you put the manual link in OP
All the info in the manual is your hard work (and maybe some of my spare time), so you don't need my permission to use it as you wish
I will be more than happy to contribute to this community doing anything I can.

@definal
I can't help you with X-Sim because I never finished my simulator (I only did some basic testing using generic profiles for LFS)
I think that AMC & DSMHb can't be autodetected, you need to do the setup in USO section of X-Sim for specific COM port that you're using.
Try to search in X-Sim thread on how to setup and test.

Hi I just want to report an error in the, otherwise perfect, manual that fermevc has made.
In the parts list for the AMC it states that you need 1pcs 4,7k Ohm and 1pcs 220 Ohm, but accordingly to the schematics you need two of each.
I found that out when I tried to assemble it yesterday

And by the way, when you write 1/4 W for the resistors, do you mean 0,25W or 1 or 4 W? Because I bought 0,4w's and they are a lot smaller then those in your pictures, I am afraid that they won't be able handle the current if they are too weak.

Hi, after quite some testing I can't really get my AMC board to function. And I'm now asking for tips/help.

What works:
I can program the atmega chip with the 18.432 crystal and with corresponding firmware. This however takes probably somewhere around 30 minutes to do. The verification is successful though. A read of the Flash takes as long as the programming.
I use a FTDI based usb-serial adapter that is set to 115200 bits/s and serial printer mode
The securitybits are set as described in the manual
I'm running it with a 7,5V 1,5A powersupply

What doesn't work:
I have wired the lcd as described in the manual but I may have broken it since it will not even display a single character, not even block-chars. The backlight is working though.
To try to see if the AMC is working without the LCD I have connected a LED to the M1N1 pin and the Vcc pin as described in a post earlier by R-eng.
I have set up the force sender and the force profiler using the testplugin and it shows me nice blue line that goes up and down on both axis.
The USO is set up with my com-port and with AB~255~~a01~~a02~ in the Datapacket with axisinformation-field and when I start it it says about 30 uso outputs/s
And when I start it the LED that I have connected does not respond in any way.
Using a multimeter I can see that there's about 0,3V on the MXMY ports <-> Vcc
Though after apprx 10 minutes of runtime, the led start to light up and when I check with a multimeter is reads ~5v steady.

Questions:
Shouldn't I see some reaction on the LED when I reset it, ie shouldn't it try to center itself?
Could the atmega be broken even though it is possible to program it?
Could you guys come up with anything else that might be wrong?

Here are some pictures, please let me know if you want to see something specific:
[img600px]http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7192/img20110817204252.jpg[/img600px]
[img600px]http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/2000/img20110817204325.jpg[/img600px]
[img600px]http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/3392/img20110817205929.jpg[/img600px]
the fluss is the type that you don't need to clean and I've checked that there are no shortcurcuits where any component is close to another.

@watzen
1. Yes, resistors are 0.25W (1/4 is the same written differently, one divided by four equals 0.25 . I think it is quite enough regarding power, but you can use 0.5W or bigger if you can place it on PCB, most important thing is tolerance, so choose wisely )
2. You're right about part list error, there should be 2x 4,7Kohms and 2x 220Ohms resistors, sorry (in most cases, suppliers won't sell just one peace of this, so that's why I didn't noticed this error, I have them plenty )

Regarding your AMC problem, unfortunately, I can't be of any assistance because mine started working after first power on. Had some trouble turning the LCD on, but eventually did it. You should try to make your LCD work, and after that you'll have more info for others to help you.

Best of luck, Igor

Thanks for the clarifications, I can now sleep a bit better knowing that my resistors are up to snuff (they're 1%'s, 0,4w)
I think I'll try and buy a new Atmega chip and lcd to start with. When I first tried to program it I used the 24mhz crystal, perhaps it didn't like the overclocking and broke down.

It has been a long trip to read this thread but now i am finished

I planning to start my build on the AVR controller and the DSMhb
Bu is there any webbshop that have all the components that i can order from
Not a kit, i mean one site that have all the components

I got my parts from ELFA.se, though I'm not sure about their prices.

How much did you other guys spend on all the components on the AMC board? IIRC it cost me about 100€. (excl the board)

I know this is a hassle, but if anyone were willing to go through this list to check that I didn't get some wrong parts, I'd really appreciate it.
Attached is a text-file that you can upload to this store:
https://www.elfa.se/elfa3~eu_en/b2b/bas ... Prepare.do

I think I've got the right parts

Hi

I need to know one thing. Can you connect 2 h-bridge to the board AVR of Thanos? or this option is not viable.

I need use 3 or 4 motors in my new project. Soon I will open a post explaining my new project.

Thanks
Best Regards

I have read in the thread that if you connect 2 h controllercards on the amc controllercard you can use 4 motors but then you lose the lcd screen

Yes, but I have read this in the first post Here is a schematic on how to do wirings for two RN-VN2 controllers to support 4 motors in the future... Only the first header in used for now. And I wonder if this is actually possible or not. Any idea?

Thanks Best Regards

It is possible but I never implemented it. The reason is that I'm currently using the timers on that PWM ports for other reasons like hardware serial buffer support, LCD timing and accurate ADC conversions... Too technical to explain but I didn't think worth to sacrifice speed or accuracy for supporting another two motors.

And since I designed this board X-sim software advanced a lot and now supports the use of multiple serial ports, even USB2Serial adapters without problems, so a good idea is to use two AMC boards in two serial ports to expand your simulator with more motors.

Thanos

ok thank you, bad news, but can be solved

Best Regards

Hi all,

First time poster - I'm in the process of building a SFGT style simulator and I have successfully built the AMC and H-Bridge boards. Had no major issues and everything appears to be working fine.

I have a few questions about potentiometers and setting their usable ranges.

I've seen and used the multi-turn pot on the AMC to set the end point of the potentiometer. eg. Make the first 180 degrees of a 270 degree pot read out 0-1023.

I'm wondering if there is a way to offset the starting angle as well?

eg. make 45-225deg map to 0-1023, therefore any angle <45 will simply output 0, and any angle >225 will output 1023.

Reason behind this thinking is to help minimise any potential mechanical damage to the potentiometer by leaving some buffer zone either side of my potentiometers movement.

Otherwise I fear that when the motor is trying to go close to a value of 0, it may overshoot slightly and force the potentiometer past its mechanical limits.




I'm not 100% sure how this circuit works - but from the image in this post here: post6138.html?hilit=%20potentiometer#p6138

It's saying to me that the AMC gets a reading of 0 when the pot is at its full resistance?

So if I was to add a small resistor of 1000R in series (I'm using a 10K 270deg pot) the AMC would see a reading of 0 when the pot is only at 27 degrees? ( at 27 degrees the pot would be at 9K, plus my 1000R resistor for a total of 10K )

Then I can tweak the end point using the multi-turn pot on the AMC?

Am I on the right track? Is this how I would manage this?

Hi MajorClod,

Have you ever heard about voltage dividers? Google that and you can see that you can add a small resistor between the ground and the potentiometer to add some minimum resistance value to the pot.

Also you might try to find something like this...
http://www.directindustry.com/prod/elen ... 54613.html

Thanos

Do you have any amc and drivers for 115v DC 3-4 motors 2.5 amp.
Randy

Where are you going to find a 115v DC power supply??????

If they were AC motors you could use VFD motor drivers in analog mode.

Thanks for the reply Tronic, I'll look into it.

I have an issue that might be worth mentioning. I haven't spent a whole lot of time narrowing down where the problem might lie, however I figure it might be worth posting while I wait for some additional parts to arrive for more thorough troubleshooting, incase anyone else has experienced these issues.


I've programmed my board, hooked it up to X-Sim, all appears to be working well on that front.


I'm having trouble getting the motor to move at the correct speed in both directions. I'm using the AMC + DSMhb. The motor I'm using is a small 12V DC hobby motor with a built-in gearbox (~70rpm), not wiper motors just yet. I'm getting full 0-1023 feedback from both Pots on the LCD.

My current test case is only using one motor and powering one side of the H-Bridge, I'm not hooked up to X-Sim so I'm just testing with the motor target values set at the default of 128. I haven't adjusted KP either.

By moving POT1 from 0-1023, I'm getting the motor turning as expected - though I seem to only be getting a lower voltage output when the motor is running in one direction (green LED direction) When the Red LED is on I'm getting full speed. Specifically I'm getting full 12V in the red direction, and only 4.6V in the green direction.

If I reverse the polarity of the motor I get the same result. It's only the green direction that is getting lower voltage.

The interesting thing is while the motor is moving in the green direction, if I adjust POT2 to be closer to 512, voltage to MOTOR1 will gradually move closer to 8.8V. It still never reaches 12V though. Moving POT1 while the motor is moving in the RED direction causes some slight flicker on the LED's, and if I have POT1 adjust so that its moving the motor slowly in the RED direction, POT2 still affects the motors speed.

Now I figured something like this might happen when switched to SFGT, but I have the AMC set to Joyrider, so I assume each axis should be completely independent - POT1 should never affect MOTOR2 and vice versa yes?

Note this appears to happen on both sides of the DSMhb, swapping everything around so that MOTOR2 and POT2 and being used, with POT1 affecting the speed of MOTOR2 when its in the green direction.

I am currently using the IRF3205 which I have read some good and not so good things about in this thread - my first course of action will be to change these to the IRLZ44N which should be arriving tomorrow.

Secondly - should POT2 ever be affecting MOTOR1 outputs? Could this be something related to the IRF3205 or am I looking at a second issue on the AMC instead? I'm checked out my POT wiring and there are definitely no short circuits here. Short of replacing each IC on each board - I'm not sure what else I should be looking for.

Here is a quick video I made showing how POT2 is adjusting the speed of Motor1 when its in reverse - https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/- ... directlink

Thanks in advance!