Comments

• Admin

  Thomas J Coyle III December 4, 2012 at 11:01am

  @Alan,

  I have a cheapy five function Grand Wing servo driver/analyzer. It has really come in handy like now being able to determine the APM auto mode PWM signals for steering and throttle without having to attach the ESC and the servos. I found that each 1% above 50% throttle is approximately equivalent to a .01ms increase in the PWM value.

  Regards,

  TCIII
• 

  KM6VV December 4, 2012 at 9:55am

  That's great!

  What servo analyzer are you using?  I have a HiTech Servo Tester that comes in handy. 

  Regards,

  Alan
• Admin

  Thomas J Coyle III December 4, 2012 at 9:09am

  Hi All,

  I would like to report a littel success with my rover while using the ArduRover v2.30 alpha code.

  Since I have a CC Mamba Monster ESC, I sent the minimum throttle at 50 (neutral) and the maximum at 75 and cruise at 65. Per Flavio's suggestion, I created one waypoint with a left turn to check out how my rover would perform in a static setup. Instead of actually hooking up the steering servos and ESC, I used my trusty servo analyzer to look at the output of the APM in the manual mode and in the auto mode. In the manual mode, with the joystick centered, the ESC output was ~1.5ms for both the steering and throttle and the throttle and steering joystick movement resulted in the correct forward motion and right - left steering. Switching to the auto mode the throttle output was ~1.69ms (slow to medium forward speed), but the steering output was requesting a right turn instead of a left turn. So I checked the "reverse" box on the roll channel in the MP radio cal tab and then retested. In the auto mode the APM again issued a speed value of 1.69ms, this time it issued a steering value of ~1.8ms which for my rover is a sharp left turn. Success. Hope this helps other members to validate their steering and throttle controls.

  Regards,

  TCIII
• Admin

  Thomas J Coyle III December 3, 2012 at 3:21pm

  @Mike,

  I have loaded v2.30 on my E-Maxx rover and plan to do some bench testing per Flavio's suggestions. Maybe you could share your ArduRover parameter settings with us so we can compare your successful settings to our own as a baseline?

  Regards,

  TCIII
• 

  Flavio Taborelli December 2, 2012 at 4:16pm

  @TCIII

  I think that reverse settings is applied after conversion of the Cruise parameters in ms , that means that if the throttle is normal in MP a value over 50 is FW, if reverse checkbox in MP is enabled a value under 50 is FW, basically mirrored. This is a point that can be changed in new release, simply applying the conversion Value --> ms before mapping the reverse function.

  @All

  To start a wiki for the new FW I think we need more info about the changes in it respect the old 2.20b, if Thridge agree we can update the Wiki according to the tested change that he made. Otherwise it will be a very long work.

  A keynote will be usefull, something like:

  - Changed throttle behavior - now cruise throttle is not reversed by checkbox

  - Removed altitude algoritm to clean the code

  - Added new parameter "Enable Reverse" to allow only FW or FW/REV function

  etc etc

   

  What do you think ?

   
• Moderator

  Michael Pursifull December 2, 2012 at 2:42pm

  I think in time we will need to think about this in a more flexible manner. It seems to me that there will be, in time, if not already, different ESC types, stepper motors, tracked/differential drive/steering systems, and I would expect we will also have transmission systems to contend with. I am already planning on fitting an atv, and construction equipment (multiple forward and reverse settings, plus throttle controls)
• Moderator

  Michael Pursifull December 2, 2012 at 2:33pm

  I'm happy to put the wiki information anywhere. We can start a new docroot in an appendix, keep it very live, for the alpha version, get it ready as we move towards a release, or any other way. It can be targeted at alpha users, or could be put up elsewhere, whatever this team wants to do. I just want to start collecting more information in one place to so we can pull info out of the discussions and put it in one place for new users/developers, maybe. But I'm not set in any specific path. Whatever this team thinks is best, I'm happy to help.
• Admin

  Thomas J Coyle III December 2, 2012 at 2:30pm

  Hi All,

  One issue that I am trying to understand here is the throttle range and where neutral is located within the range. Since JLN was using a truck ESC, reverse would be anything less than 1.5ms, neutral would be at 1.5ms and anything greater than 1.5ms would start the rover forward. U4eake found that a throttle setting of 65 worked for him assuming that 50 is equivalent to 1.5ms. That would give him a forward speed of roughly 1.65ms. Comments?

  Regards,

  TCIII
• Matthew Pitts December 2, 2012 at 2:07pm

  @Flavio

  I think starting when it's an Alpha is the best time to start a wiki; this way we are starting with good information, with the understanding that it may change (and hopefully for the better) with newer releases of the firmware. Just this new Drone Builder's opinion, of course.
• 

  Flavio Taborelli December 2, 2012 at 1:59pm

  @Mike @TCIII

  FW 2.30 is too "young" to start a Wiki imho, it need some more test and improvements but MP and in general APM board for rovers could be a starting point for a good Wiki. Once new FW will go over alpha and beta testing we can think about a step by step setup guide. In this weeks I write a lot of notes in setup and connections on APM, we can share the experience. My only problem is the language, as you can read my english is not good enough for a Wiki, my note needs a review before publication. I also suggest a new thread with some key points on the FW 2.30 alpha because actually the only way to find the improvements/modifications is by reading a lot of code...