Comment by hiwa on August 20, 2011 at 7:36am

thanks Heino R. Pull for replay, here is a pic of what i did. i coped ardustation2 folder in Arducopter2.0.38 folder than i set libraries at sketchbook location in preferences menu. i still have errors. sorry for my bad English.

Comment by Heino R. Pull on August 20, 2011 at 7:56am

@hiwa - Everything looks good. You need to exit Arduino and restart when changing libraries. That may be your problem now. If that doesn't work then I'll download the version of AruducopterMega that you have installed and try compiling from scratch to duplicate your errors.

Comment by Tassos Polichronopoulos on September 3, 2011 at 5:16pm

Hi do we need normal servos for the pan tilt or modified ones for 180 or 360?
Thanks in advance
Tassos

Comment by Jeff E on September 3, 2011 at 7:29pm

As far as I remember you need Hitec 485 or 645 or equivalent. This is the servo on EZ tracker and thats what I have. I think Heino and Hai uses the same ones.

Comment by Heino R. Pull on September 3, 2011 at 9:45pm

Yes the gearing of readymaderc unit takes care of the 360 degree in the pan servo so stock 485 or 645 servos work without mods. Other commercial tracker kits might require modified servos.

Comment by Tassos Polichronopoulos on September 4, 2011 at 5:49am

Well the reason I am asking is that I am fixing my own tracker and I was wandering what servos to use in order to be compatible with the ardustation software. I tried last night with a modified 360 servo and the ardustation would not open the lcd, maybe the modified servo was drawing too much current.

If i will not manage to use modified servos maybe i can use winch servos?

thanks in advance 

Tassos

Comment by Heino R. Pull on September 4, 2011 at 7:40am

The magic lines in the software for servo calibration are:

Pan.attach(9,609,2255);//PAN Servos  //These numbers seem to work well for the HITEC-485 servos   Tilt.attach(10,591,2235);//Tilt Elevator

 

pan init values (609 usec for 0 degree servo call, 2255 usec for 180 degree servo call)

 

The servo library call "write" argument is 0 to 180 degrees and 0 maps to 609 usec above and 180 to 2255 usecs for pan. Therefore, the software assumes in pan that 0 to 360 degrees maps to a servo call of 0 to 180 and a fixed servo position. This should work with 360 servos and needs testing the initialization above to actual pan position on the servo. The values I set above are actually out of range of the standard pulse widths for a servo (1000 usec to 2000 usec being "standard")  but the hitec 485 uses the above init values ok. 

 

The basic limitation of the software is that for a given antenna pan heading (0 to 359) that there is a single servo rotation position for a given call to "write". So if a servo maps more than 360 degress of rotation, the init calls have to be adjusted to reduce the rotation to just 0 to 360. A continous rotation winch servo will definitely not work.

 

I've tested a 360 degree modified Hitec-485 servo from servocity.com and it works fine, but is not well suited to the readymaderc antenna tracker. 

 

Loosing the LCD while testing servo positioning probably means the the voltage regulator is overheating and has shut down.  You definitely need a heat sync for most servos, and you need to avoid servo binding. Otherwise a 360 degree servo should work with proper init values.

Comment by Heino R. Pull on September 4, 2011 at 7:44am

Also as others have mentioned, it might make sense to power a servo with a separate beefier 5 volt supply (from the Ardustation's 5 volt supply) to allow large current draw servos to be used.

Comment by Ben Miller on September 15, 2011 at 11:23pm

So with this new code, the antenna will automatically track the drone?  Can this be done with the ardupilot program running off a laptop as well, or only with the ardustation 2?

 

Thanks, amazing job!

Comment by heckmic on October 7, 2011 at 3:58am

I have now my second board but still the same Error:

avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x54

Upper left LED is on, lower left blinks. It is supplyed only by USB. I can upload to Arduino mini Board for WiiKopter, but i get an error when i try to upload the Ardustation code to the Ardustation by selecting "Duemilanove or Nano" like described. So whats wrong?

 

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