Alpha 1 and soon Alpha2 help
I purchased an Alpha 1 robot just for fun and learning experience and have run into trouble.
It looks like the motors are based on the Dynamixel protocol although there is no documentation to indicate what they are. The Jimu also uses a similar motor for it's robots.
Anyway it looks like the Propeller isn't fast enough to send and receive data at the 1Mega baud needed to talk to these servos.
I tried writing some code just to track the low and high transition's of the data pin and found I was missing transitions. I also tried to reproduce the signal and found that it was not able to produce a square wave at that frequency either.
I am using C code and I did see some spin code but the end results is that it needs to be in assembly code to work fast enough to produce that baud rate.
I bought a replacement servo for one that stop working and need to change the ID from 1 to 7 so that I can replace the broken one. I could just purchase the USB programmer and run it off my computer but that cost more money and takes all the fun out of it.
I don't do spin code but if I have to I can. I prefer C code and will try and reproduce the assembly code in C as one of my side projects.
Mike
It looks like the motors are based on the Dynamixel protocol although there is no documentation to indicate what they are. The Jimu also uses a similar motor for it's robots.
Anyway it looks like the Propeller isn't fast enough to send and receive data at the 1Mega baud needed to talk to these servos.
I tried writing some code just to track the low and high transition's of the data pin and found I was missing transitions. I also tried to reproduce the signal and found that it was not able to produce a square wave at that frequency either.
I am using C code and I did see some spin code but the end results is that it needs to be in assembly code to work fast enough to produce that baud rate.
I bought a replacement servo for one that stop working and need to change the ID from 1 to 7 so that I can replace the broken one. I could just purchase the USB programmer and run it off my computer but that cost more money and takes all the fun out of it.
I don't do spin code but if I have to I can. I prefer C code and will try and reproduce the assembly code in C as one of my side projects.
Mike
Comments
Here's a link to a program I wrote to make it easy to change the baud or ID of a Dynamixel servo.
I'm pretty sure I've tested the program up to 1Mbps.
I will take a look at your spin code and see.
Mike
Mike
I would have thought they'd publish the protocol to make the robot more attractive to hackers.