Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Martin Seven on March 1, 2010 at 3:11pm

1 - It is, but it's a very rough ride for a human brain to keep a quad airborne. I.e. possible, but impractical, with crashes and carnage after a few-second flight (more like a jump) being a certainty.
2 - Basic Stamp is too weak. On the other hand, PICs and Arduinos work very well (the AeroQuad is a very good example of an Arduino-powered quad).

If you want to have it in the air as soon as possible, then just build the AeroQuad. It has all the parts lists, plans and code ready to go.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph Propati on March 1, 2010 at 3:24pm

How cool! Thanks for the URL direction.
I will take a look... while I'm doing that does anyone have PIC18 code for a PIC microcontroller to control 4 ESC?
Thanks again Martin.

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Permalink Reply by Stephan on March 31, 2010 at 10:41am

Hi
Use a PIC 18F4431. It has easy to use PWM outputs. Just keep the pulses between 1 and 2 ms long.
Here is my code for controlling four ESC's. You will have to have a look at the datasheet for connections.
Also it waits for a push button to speed up the motor. (Starts turning in about 4 pushes).
Hope this helps.
If anyone has any PIC based control algorithms to stabilize a qaudrotor for hovering I would really appreciate it.

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Permalink Reply by Stephan on March 31, 2010 at 11:14am

LIST P=18f4431
#INCLUDE"P18F4431.INC"




SPEEDL EQU 0X23
SPEEDH EQU 0X24
CounterA EQU 0X20
CounterB EQU 0X21
CounterC EQU 0X22

ORG 0X000
;***************************************************
;---------------------------PORT SETUP--------------


CLRF TRISA
CLRF TRISB ;ALL PWM ACTIVATED
CLRF TRISC
CLRF TRISD
BSF TRISD,0
BSF TRISD,1
CLRF TRISE

CLRF LATA
CLRF LATB ;ALL PWM ACTIVATED
CLRF LATC
CLRF LATD
CLRF LATE

;***************************************************
;---------------------------PWM SETUP---------------
INI_PCPWM


MOVLW B'11111100' ; Free running mode, Input clock is 1:64, Postscale is 1:16
MOVWF PTCON0


MOVLW B'10000000' ; Time base is on and counts up
MOVWF PTCON1

MOVLW B'00000000' ; CONTROLLS THE PERIOD 20mS
MOVWF PTPERL ;11111111
MOVLW B'00000001' ;00000011
MOVWF PTPERH

MOVLW B'11111111' ;0xffF AS PER CALCULATION

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Permalink Reply by auzi on October 23, 2010 at 8:22pm

Hai stephan.
may i know what compiler u used and i very glad if u post the code again in C.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Roberto Navoni on April 1, 2010 at 4:35pm

Hi Joseph I'm start to working 4 month ago at MultiPilot project ... actualy is possible to develop with my Hw and software experimental electric and variable pitch quad check my page on Diydrones or the project repository at this link : http://code.google.com/p/lnmultipilot10/
Contact me if you need more details about the project
Regards
Roberto

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Permalink Reply by SciFly on October 24, 2010 at 11:10am

Very cool. Are you still working on this project? Why do you prefer the pic? If not , have you considered joining the ArduCopter Dev team?You could get you're quad rotor project while building on shoulderr of giants, while workin with them. Then if you really want to explore you're independent inventive spirit you can build onto the whole package, rather than reinvent it.

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