Posted by Dustin Romero on January 4, 2010 at 6:15pm
Well i am starting to get things together to make my rock crawler autonomous. i have a ardupilot and arduino mega on the way. i have already experimented with a basic stamp v2 in which i was implimenting a mesmic dual axis accel. and ping sensor to judge the obstacle in front of it and decide if it is climable. well durring the prototyping phase, my esc spiked voltage to myboard and fried my stamp. And now is where i need help. i need any suggestions on what i can do with these two boards. and codes or suggestions on what to impliment would be greatly appriciated.
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ouch sorry to hear about the fried stamp... you should make sure to protect your arduino mega with a zener diode or two... cheap investment that can save your board in voltage spikes
I am about to try a similar project. I just finished an R/C lawnmower using the Arduino to read 2 servo signals from my r/c receiver and output commands to the h-bridge. It works very well for r/c control, but I just got an Ardupilot with GPS module and am about to try to integrate it onto my lawnmower. Having trouble finding in the code where I can change the outputs to control my motors.
If you want to use your Arduino, I can give you some code to decode 2 servo signals from your R/C receiver and turn them into PWM values (plus a 3rd aux channel for on/off). If you are getting an Arduino Mega, you can decode 6 or more because it has 6 external interrupts (the regular arduino only has 2). You would need an h-bridge to control the motor though (pretty easy to make).
Hey Dustin,
I can't help you regarding the boards, I just wanted to voice my excitement over your project! I've just purchased a Red Cat Rockslide (looks like you have one too) that I want to use in my home inspection business. My plan is to mount a pan/tilt Blackfin camera and lights and use that setup for an initial survey of crawl space items (plumbing, foundation, structure etc).
Replies
If you want to use your Arduino, I can give you some code to decode 2 servo signals from your R/C receiver and turn them into PWM values (plus a 3rd aux channel for on/off). If you are getting an Arduino Mega, you can decode 6 or more because it has 6 external interrupts (the regular arduino only has 2). You would need an h-bridge to control the motor though (pretty easy to make).
I can't help you regarding the boards, I just wanted to voice my excitement over your project! I've just purchased a Red Cat Rockslide (looks like you have one too) that I want to use in my home inspection business. My plan is to mount a pan/tilt Blackfin camera and lights and use that setup for an initial survey of crawl space items (plumbing, foundation, structure etc).
Please keep us updated with your progress.