End Stop Control for Robotic Arm

sisc0br

I am using BlocklyProp to program movement of robotic arms in the classroom. Each of the three segments of the arm is powered by a step motor controlled by a Parallax ASC+ Board(#32214). The grabber is powered with a servo.

I need to have end stop control on each stepper.

Desirably, the end stop code is executed by a separate processor in such a way that the user (student) is not responsible for it and does not have access to it.

During execution of the student's program, the end stop functions would need to run in the background. The Propeller multi-core processor may be well suited for this. The issue is: where do you put the code so the it can be accessed by the microprocessor, yet is not visible, or otherwise subject to modification by the student.

Can BlocklyProp be made to include user developed library functions?

Or should I be following another path for end stop control?

AwesomeCronk

You could have another propeller intercept the motor signals, and have it save the data received as a variable, then transmit the data out to the motors. Add a WiFi module to it, and you could open a "kill page" for each arm, and stop them from the teacher's computer.

Mickster

I thought it was standard procedure for any kind of motor controller to have hard wired FWD/REV limit inputs (?)