PINGs on robot freezing?? Servos are not to blame! HELP ME!!!

Microcontrolled · 2010-05-24 00:25

Sorry for the odd title. I have a robot that I have built that has 2 PING's, an Xbee, an SD card and audio out. The robot is moved by 2 Parallax continuous rotation servos. I am powering it all off 4 D cells. The robot will relay sensor information back to the home through the Xbee, and the home commands the robot with simple 1 byte serial commands. My problem is: The ping's will be working for a while, then all of a sudden the lights will stop flashing and data will stop being returned. I can't figure any reason for this happening, as I once thought that it was the servos, but after isolating the servos from the program and making my own servo driver, and I made both a serial and analog one, it still happened. I then tryed decresing the speed of the reads on the PINGs. No luck. I've tryed everything that I can think of and there still seems to be no rhyme or reason to what is happening. I am using Kye's duel servo driver and the default PING driver. I know that it is not the home end because it acts the same if controlled by typing the commands in on a PC terminal. Can someone help?? Here's the code:

''This is version 2 of the RC bot. This version allows it to be fully automated, and turned on and off
''(the automation) from the transmitter. It can not be turned back manuel from the remote at this
''time. The RC bot also features a park function (2 PINGS needed) that will park itself in a corner and
''sleep until the sound sensor is triggered.
''
''Version 2.2 has lots of added wireless commands that give the controller full power and monitoring
''over the robot.
''Version 2.3 corrects a bug that was case conflicts on the incoming characters. Now they have been moved
''to hexadecimal values.
''Version 2.4 lets the control see values bigger then a byte length by changing the value from inches
''to feet automatically and by adding in a type byte.
''Version 2.5 removes the features of 2.4 due to no functionallity, and it improves the autopilot by
''allowing it to use both the front and side sensor to know what direction to turn, or if it is drifting
''into a wall due to slightly unbalenced servos.
''Version 2.6 removes conflicting between the PINGs and the rest of the program by putting them in a
''seperate cog.
''Version 2.7 added FSRW and Rayman's WAV player. Also have adapted code to use the SD/sound card
''I built for the robot.
CON

  _CLKMODE         = XTAL1 + PLL16x
  _XINFREQ         = 5_000_000         '80Mhz clock rate

  Ppin = 0
  speed = 0

  buffSize = 100  

VAR

  long state
  long cstate
  long stack[noparse][[/noparse]20]
  long minutes, seconds
  byte time
  long dist
  long side
  byte type

''///////////WAV player vars////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    long parameter1  'to pass @buff1 to ASM
    long parameter2  'to pass @buff2 to ASM
    long parameter3  'to pass sample rate to ASM
    long parameter4  'to pass #samples to ASM
    long buff1[noparse][[/noparse]buffSize]
    long buff2[noparse][[/noparse]buffSize]
    byte Header[noparse][[/noparse]44]  

OBJ

  servo  :  "servoEngine"
  ping   :  "Ping"
  xb     :  "Xbee_Object"
  sd     :  "fsrw"
  
PUB Start | i, cntn

    xb.start(8,9,0,9600)
    servo.servoEngine
    time := 5
    sd.mount(16)
    
    cognew(GetPing,@stack)
    Manuel

PUB Manuel
    
   ' state := @idle
    'cstate := @man
    servo.SetPositionA(90)
    servo.SetPositionB(90)
   ' Automatic
    repeat
      case xb.rx
        "u":
          xb.tx($FA)
          servo.SetPositionA(0+speed)
          servo.SetPositionB(180-speed)
          'state := @active
        "d":
          xb.tx($FA)
          servo.SetPositionA(180-speed)
          servo.SetPositionB(0+speed)
          'state := @active 
        "r":
          xb.tx($FA)
          servo.SetPositionA(180-speed)
          servo.SetPositionB(180-speed)
          'state := @active 
        "l":
          xb.tx($FA)
          servo.SetPositionA(0+speed)
          servo.SetPositionB(0+speed)
          'state := @active
        $FD:
          xb.tx($FA) 
          servo.SetPositionA(90)
          servo.SetPositionB(90)
          'state := @idle    
        $0A:
          reboot
        $0B:
          time := xb.rx
       ' $0C:
       '   speed := xb.rx
        $0D:
          'state := @dormant
          Nap  
        "i":
          waitcnt(clkfreq/50 + cnt)
          xb.tx(dist)
          xb.tx(side)
          xb.tx(speed)
          xb.tx(ina[noparse][[/noparse]10])
        "I":
          waitcnt(clkfreq/50 + cnt)
          xb.dec(dist)
          xb.dec(side)
          xb.dec(speed)
          xb.dec(ina[noparse][[/noparse]10])    
        "a":
          xb.tx($FA)
          cognew(Timer,@stack) 
          Automatic
        $0F:
          waitcnt(clkfreq/50 + cnt)
          xb.str(string("Distance from objects: "))
          xb.dec(ping.Inches(Ppin))
          xb.str(string(13,"State: "))
          xb.str(state)
          xb.str(string(13,"Control: "))
          xb.str(cstate)
             

PUB Automatic | count

  servo.SetPositionA(0)   
  servo.SetPositionB(180)
  repeat
    if xb.rxcheck == "M"
      Manuel
    if xb.rxcheck == "P"
      Park   
    if side < 6
      servo.SetPositionA(180)
      servo.SetPositionB(180)
      waitcnt(clkfreq/3 + cnt)
      servo.SetPositionA(0)  
      servo.SetPositionB(180)
    if dist < 36
      side := ping.Inches(1)
      if side < 48
        servo.SetPositionA(180)
        servo.SetPositionB(180)
      else
        servo.SetPositionA(0)
        servo.SetPositionB(0)  
      repeat
        dist := ping.Inches(Ppin)
        waitcnt(clkfreq/100 + cnt)
        count++
        if count == 700
          Start
        if dist > 48
          Automatic
    if minutes == time
      Park     
             
PUB Park | edge

  servo.SetPositionA(0)             
  servo.SetPositionB(180)           
  repeat
    waitcnt(clkfreq/100 + cnt)       
    if dist =< 12                   
      quit                          
  servo.SetPositionA(180)           
  servo.SetPositionB(180)           
  repeat
    waitcnt(clkfreq/100 + cnt)         
    if side =< 15                   
      quit                          
  servo.SetPositionA(0)             
  servo.SetPositionB(180)           
  repeat
    waitcnt(clkfreq/100 + cnt)         
    if side =< 10                    
      servo.SetPositionA(180)       
      servo.SetPositionB(180)       
      waitcnt(clkfreq/20 + cnt)     
      servo.SetPositionA(0)         
      servo.SetPositionB(180)       
    if side => 13                   
      servo.SetPositionA(0)         
      servo.SetPositionB(0)         
      waitcnt(clkfreq/20 + cnt)     
      servo.SetPositionA(0)         
      servo.SetPositionB(180)       
    if side > 18
      Park
    if dist <= 12
      Sleep
                           
PUB Sleep

  repeat
    waitcnt(clkfreq/20 + cnt)
    if ina[noparse][[/noparse]10] == 1
      Automatic

PUB Nap

  dira[noparse][[/noparse]12]~~
  outa[noparse][[/noparse]12]~
  repeat
    waitcnt(clkfreq*2 + cnt)
    outa[noparse][[/noparse]12]~~
    waitcnt(clkfreq/300 + cnt)
    outa[noparse][[/noparse]12]~
    if ina[noparse][[/noparse]11] == 1
      quit
  return true    

PRI GetPing

  repeat
    dist := ping.Inches(Ppin)
    side := ping.Inches(1)
    waitcnt(clkfreq/20 + cnt)
          
PRI Timer | dT, T

  dT := clkfreq
  T  := cnt
  
  repeat    
    T += dT
    waitcnt(T)
    seconds ++
    if seconds == 60
      seconds~
      minutes++

As you can see the sound and SD card are not used in this program.

Thanks in advance,

Micro

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Mike Green · 2010-05-24 00:41

How are you powering the servos? Are you running them directly off the battery or are you using the regulated 5V supply? If it's the 5V supply, you may be overheating the regulator with the servo current drain on top of the PINGs and the regulator is shutting down

Microcontrolled · 2010-05-24 00:54

Could that be it? 6V is safe, so I'll try running them at VIN.

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Microcontrolled · 2010-05-24 01:08

No, that did not fix it. However, I think that that might (and that's a big might) be what is causing it. The first couple of tests the PINGs would work until the servos were on, then they would resume working 2 seconds after I stopped the servos. After a few tests, though, they started just staying off once the servos were on. It does definitely involve the servos, but it could be software or hardware.

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Sparks-R-Fun · 2010-05-24 01:16

How confident are you that your batteries are not weak?

··- Sparks

Timmoore · 2010-05-24 01:20

2 comments about the software, stack size of 20 is pretty small, I would try much larger until you are sure you have no problems.
The ping and timer cogs use the same stack - will cause problems, you need 2 stacks one for each.

Timmoore · 2010-05-24 01:20

2 comments about the software, stack size of 20 is pretty small, I would try much larger until you are sure you have no problems.
The ping and timer cogs use the same stack - will cause problems, you need 2 stacks one for each.

Microcontrolled · 2010-05-24 01:36

I don't think the batterys, as they are new, but I will try a new pair tomorrow. The PINGs freeze even if the read commands are called and are not in a seperate cog. That is not the case.

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Mike Green · 2010-05-24 01:40

Timmoore has a good point. You can't use the same stack area for two cogs. You have to have a stack area for each cog.

PINGs on robot freezing?? Servos are not to blame! HELP ME!!!

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