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

Jsmith2307

Thank you for sharing your progress and problems during it. I asked, asking and asking at first, I'm too scared to go wrong, but if it fails keep moving. Did managed to discover what was wrong with your AMC? Good luck with your project. I also am not a professional soldering! Actually I saw many disparate information in this topic.


Poteroa

I got the pdf version and print on paper only for the 40-pin conference, it seems that everything is right and in its place. I hope to be the right model. I saw that this layout has some points that have no component or bridge, so also did not understand what it is, right next to the chip and crystal, rx, tx, some here on the topic have these holes in the board but has no components .

The LCD that I bought has no backlight. But from what I understand if it had backlight should not take the energy amc board without first turning off the lcd or will burn it.

the resistors have a correct position? bought 10 resistors each model requested. But the other components are counted. : ( Andn yeah I'll build the H-Bridge but not yet asked any component but I will give special attention to this problem of MOSFETs.

Thank you all and if you have more questions for sure be back.!

Hi faelvasco.

About my problem and how I got it solved. (with help from Tronicgr) of course. (Thank you for that Tronicgr =) ).
I checked the soldering I made with a magnifying glass and good light, checked everything at least 5 times, found few bad solder points and fixed them.
My problem was a non regulated powersupply, I think, that I connected for the LCD-display, the AMC got the power from another PSU at the same time, regulated by 2940. The other PSU must have given a surge through the LCD Vss/Vo/Gnd -> Atmega8535, and broke it, or gave some interference when flashing it.
Got the chip flashed the first time, but it never woke up and could not reflash it no matter what I did.

Separated Vo, Vss and R/W from the other PSU, (left the Vo, Vss and R/W connected together, flashed the new chip, voila! Works now.
I still need a resistor/pot to adjust the contrast, but thats later.

Still gathering stuff together, just got some parts from an old copy machine to use with positioning pots (Belts/gears) that I got free. =)
And of course the frame and wipermotors are still missing. Hope to get it up before June..

-Poteroa

P.S. Just go for it, but before pluging in power, check, check, check, and check... and oh, RECHECK everything.

Aha I didn't know there existed two x-sim forums..
Well I signed up there now.

They should really change the text to , Please Sign in or register to view the Project.

AMC works with xSim 3.0??

Yes, its compatible. The new version AMC1.6USB bears the X-SIM3 logo and is easier to build though...

I would love to build the AMC 1.6 but i buy all the components to build 1.5, i will eatch the board this weekend. And from what I saw nobody yet built the 1.6!

I bet, PCB services are already building the PCB's as we speak... 8)

Greetings,
I 'll have my avr 1.6 from Sunstone PCB, on the 5-11-12!
jsmith2307

put some pics or video!!

guys, I'm a little doubt.

What is the capacitor should I buy, where on the list is 2 - Capacitor 1.2nF (they write on them 1N2) ... I looked in stores, but as ceramic capacitor have not found. What type of capacitor goes there? 1.2nf = 1200pf and can not find anywhere. actually only with 500v, here the link

http://loja.multcomercial.com.br/ecomme ... 1337024491

Hi to all,

Just a small demonstration of my new firmware1.2 for the AMC. I totally rewrote the Serial communications in low level commands and I can achieve update rates up to 1000 times per seconds or 1000 changes in motor position per second!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt9cUwTub70

For testing the code I used my AVR644USB2.2 board that has some extra features missing from AMC1.6 design, but the main components are the same thus I could port the firmware to AMC1.6 easily (If someone eventually donates me a AMC1.6 board to do the beta tests!!!)

Anyway, I think I break down the serial speed limit for good this time! Anyone has a Pololu Jrk 12v12 running at these update rates? :lol:

Thanos

Some more updates on the project was posted on my blog:
http://motionsim.blogspot.com/2012/05/t ... -with.html


The test of Quadrature optical encoders for feedback positioning was a success! :thbup:

Thanos




 

Hi to all,

I decided I should start making available my AMC644USB board that I designed and build in a small volume back in 2011 (2-1-2011). I had them build but didn't had enough parts for a kit back then. Along that some setbacks left it hanging for a while. Now I have new firmware for it that supports all the the basic functions I wanted. And with the feedback from whoever want the boards I could make even more perfect! I have about 15 boards now and if there is enough interest I'll make more.


This board has some features on it that are missing from the AMC1.6 that I designed this year. It has support for driving AC motor drives providing them with 10v analog signal for speed and in addition with an inexpensive darlington array it can provide 24v for the direction signals. Also it has onboard contact encoder and two buttons (one provided by the encoder itself) to implement a simple to use realtime state machine menu.

In more details:

1. The USB FTDI breakout board provides 5v power to the AMC644USB board along with serial interface at speeds of 115kbps.
2. The refresh rates for the new position data is now 1ms (0.001 second), so it can recalculate and reposition the motors 1000 times per second.
3. The LCD is powered from the AMC644USB board now. No need for extra power.
4. The Analog out circuit (for 0-10v) is powered from an onboard DC-DC stepup converter also powered from the USB power.
5. The PWM signal for the motors is running at 21kHz with 10-bit resolution.
6. The analog inputs (for potentiometers) are also 10-bit resolution.
7. The motor position optical encoders are connected to the ADC ports and can count more than 131070 pulses per second (I could not make my test motor turn faster to see the limits yet). And end positions for the encoder will be determined using limit switches (on the rest ADC ports).

In the software side, It handles now 16-bit values for each of the two axis meaning the motor now can have 65535 positions if optical encoder is used for position feedback. Also the calculations done inside the PID are now Integer type with no rounding. For now I made available Proportional term in the LCD menu settings, but Integral and Derivative will be available as well.

The Atmega644 will be pre-programmed by my with a cool bootloader and the firmware. Then any updates or requested changes can be downloaded to the Atmega644 with a click on the computer side using a nice GUI interface programmer through USB. It does not use the same FTDI USB programmer as the AMC1.6, but a better one.


So far I have two of them fully assembled and ready to go and the rest in parts.


So anyone interested to be part of this project just contact me in PM or mail: tronickod@yahoo.com


Thanos

Well done! 1000 times per second, now all you need to find is a motor that will actually change direction 1000 times per second, tronic board or jrk regardless.

Nice work Thanos, sounds like a kick ass controller with high specs.
Its not the fact to find a motor that can accomodate that speed of change but how fast the controller works to provide the change as and when needed.
Good work anyway I was building to similar specs but you beat me to it.

Hi there fellas, again tronic, nice work, as soon as I find a suitable job with decent hours and decent pay, I am planning to buy a tronic card to have a go at it myself, I am looking at a couple of BIG h-bridges to hang off it.
So it will be a few weeks at least for me, so I will have to suffer with my slow jrks.
But can I add one thing? I appreciate your board is fast, but the comparison to a jrk is becoming like a pc benchmark score. I mean, hey . my score is 10 points higher than yours! No visual difference, but its not the point.
This is a DIY forum, we use what we can work with and afford. I chose jrks for simplicity. I do not know how fast they can actually run and I am not concerned, even though you are. So can you please stop your childish :mug1: at any other board apart from yours?
Really, give us all a chance here, if someone is happy with 25ms rate , then they do not have to go to 2ms because youthink its better. If it is, then run it on your setup, take a video and show us the difference.
:thbup:

I put the :mug1: next the JRK... NOT next to your name if I remember correctly! You don't have to be so sarcastic. I had a look on the JRK specs when they come out. I wasn't impressed back then why now?

Why you taking this so personally? Unless you get percentage of their sales which would explain it. Its not me going around proposing people to use my electronics, Its there for them to choose it if they want and IF they can. I prefer if it's used by people with knowledge about electronics cause otherwise its not appreciated. I can't keep teaching electronics for free, I went to school for that.

And third, I just want to be able to make a compare not a race. I can make million videos, I can show you the step delay on the oscilloscope and many more interesting things. But nothing will change! I can't compete pololu for the simple reason that I don't make commercial stuff! I don't get any profit sharing this. I actually feel I just loosing my time.

But I'll have to follow pololu's way in matter of letting loose a beast like that. As far as I know there is no way to duplicate the controller part of JRK, copy their firmware an start your own production (I'm not giving ideas here).

As for the Benchmark thing... Don't make me repeat myself:
-For 1ms period you get 1000hz or 1000 new positions per second. (AMC644USB)
-For 5ms period you get 200Hz or 200 new positions per second. (SCN5)
-For 25ms period you get 40Hz or just 40 new positions per second!!! (Pololu JRK12?????)
No wonder you can't feel texture of road using a Low Pass filter like that...


Thanos




























 

hi bsft, this is 2ms speed test i capture about 2 years ago... please skip to 1:36. then you can imagine how fast 1ms would be. yes i know your anwser. its beyond of wiper capability . you really can feel the vibration of tarmac for sure. and i love that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... E4_SAgQEDE

Two boards are already gone! Hurry up!!

tronic-s-amc-motor-motion-controller-with-pwm-servo-output-t559-1370.html#p39036







 

I am NOT a sales person related to the JRK, and never plan to be. I know your childish behavior is not pointed at me, I never said that.
But when you put :mug1: after a comment relating to a component, what do you expect?
Come on. All you are testing is how fast the board reactions work in windows and x-sim. You have asked several times as to what a JRK is doing with rates. No one has responded because no one is bothering to try to benchmark against you.
The only reason I have responded is because of your childish behavior relating to the success of your own board an comparing it to specs for a board of which you have read about only. People coming here want comparisons, not stupid remarks and smileys to go with that.
I NEVER said your board was bad, I only stated to others with issues building your board that there is an alternative to the AMC. Yes I know there was nothing originally, and I appreciate the work you have done in creating this and helping others to move forward.
I do not use a low pass filter for motion, I only use the standard output 1.1 g force and collision effect to get vibration off the road.
Also I should mention, the 5ms rate was used with wipers that spun at 50-60prm. The larger worm gear motors spin at 180 rpm, and I have to increase the ms rate in the jrk utility from 5 to 25ms to stop errors because the motors were reaction too fast for the board. Mind you I didn't really mess with PID and max accel rates much though. Perhaps if I did, they may move faster. Or maybe its a design fault in the JRK shock - horror.
I can feel bumps really well with these bigger faster motors. I could move the ms rate back down to 5ms, but really have not bothered as what I have does really well.
Maybe I should compare and maybe I should add a :mug1: after the comment.
Please, lets all be reasonable about this. We are here to help new people and not complain about each others results, or make stupid remarks, or complain about all the free advice being given out and not getting paid for it.
Lets get on with sim building and help new people do the same - doesn't matter what board they choose.