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servo position feedback — Parallax Forums

servo position feedback

ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
edited 2004-05-05 17:47 in General Discussion
I just read that the PSC (parallax servo controller) has position
reporting which enables you to get feedback on servo positions at any
time. Very useful.

Is there any way to get the same feedback from a servo using only a
basic stamp and the BOE (board of education)?

Comments

  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-05-04 12:00
    In a message dated 5/4/2004 10:47:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
    hejpatrik@h... writes:


    > Is there any way to get the same feedback from a servo using only a
    > basic stamp and the BOE (board of education)?
    >

    Don't really understand what you are looking for. The position of the servo
    is the last pulse command sent to it. If you wanted to debug that you could
    write:

    pulsout servo, 800
    pos = 800
    debug dec ? pos

    Sid Weaver
    256K of plugin EEPROM................
    http://www.visualmuses.com/chipcircuit/index.html





    [noparse][[/noparse]Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-05-04 15:56
    Yes. Instead of doing this:

    PULSOUT 15, 750

    ... store your position in a variable.

    PULSOUT 15, leftPos

    The variable will tell you where the servo is (supposed to be).

    -- Jon Williams
    -- Applications Engineer, Parallax
    -- Dallas Office


    Original Message
    From: pasotomaso [noparse]/noparse]mailto:[url=http://forums.parallaxinc.com/group/basicstamps/post?postID=dKrybNz4qDKnFq4_5d1Th6B1lSJ2coNTH3wBoA4mNqvf1_M0DmoYH1V3GSQkTOKSR5Bo0kNpV5cFASB8UQ]hejpatrik@h...[/url
    Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 4:19 AM
    To: basicstamps@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] servo position feedback


    I just read that the PSC (parallax servo controller) has position
    reporting which enables you to get feedback on servo positions at any
    time. Very useful.

    Is there any way to get the same feedback from a servo using only a
    basic stamp and the BOE (board of education)?




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  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-05-04 17:32
    > Is there any way to get the same feedback from a servo using only a
    > basic stamp and the BOE (board of education)?

    <http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=28107>

    --
    Enjoy,
    George Warner,
    Schizophrenic Optimization Scientists
    Apple Developer Technical Support (DTS)
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-05-04 18:56
    Thanks for the feedback, I'll try be a bit more clear:

    The signal you send to the servo is not necessarily the actual
    position of the servo. Once the signal is sent, the servo TRIES to
    position itself accordingly but if 'the loop is too short' or the
    servo gets stuck on something it will not reach that position. It
    will stop before. This means that in reality the pulsout you send can
    never be trusted to indicate the correct position of the servo.

    That's why it would be nice to get feedback on the position from the
    servo. Unless the PSC uses a variable to store the position (and not
    the actual position of the servo) is seems the servo is able to send
    a signal back to whatever is controlling it with its position. Then
    it should be possible to read this signal with just the Basic stamp
    aswell right?

    Hope that explained my question a bit better [noparse];)[/noparse]
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-05-04 20:53
    thanks for the feedback. I'll try to explain what i mean a bit better:

    the key lies in something jon Williams wrote:
    "The variable will tell you where the servo is (supposed to be)."

    "supposed to be" explains it very good. Once a signal has been sent
    to a servo it is up to the servo to reach the given position. If it
    gets stuck before getting there any variable storing the supposed
    position will be inaccurate. In reality the signal sent has nothing
    to do with the actual position of the servo.

    To get the real position i guess I would need some feedback from the
    potentiometer in the servo.

    the PSC (Parallax Servo Controller) apparently has "Position
    Reporting" that gives back the position of the servo, but i don't
    know if this is done using a variable stored in the PSC or with some
    kind of feedback from the servo. If it is feedback from the servo I
    guess this signal could be read with the basic stamp directly which
    would give an accurate position for the servo.

    I just got interested when reading about the PSC but if it uses a
    variable for servo position then I just misunderstood what it could
    do.

    Anyway - I hope someone can help me clear this out [noparse]:D[/noparse]

    thanks.

    /patrik
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2004-05-05 17:47
    > the PSC (Parallax Servo Controller) apparently has "Position
    > Reporting" that gives back the position of the servo, but i don't
    > know if this is done using a variable stored in the PSC or with some
    > kind of feedback from the servo. If it is feedback from the servo I
    > guess this signal could be read with the basic stamp directly which
    > would give an accurate position for the servo.

    It appears to just returned the "remembered" position. There doesn't seem to
    be any feedback from the actual servo.

    > To get the real position i guess I would need some feedback from the
    > potentiometer in the servo.

    It's relatively trivial to solder a wire-wrap wire to the center pin of the
    servo's pot and feed that back to a A/D converter. Saved my butt a few times
    when I needed position on a non-driven joint; I just yanked the motor out of
    a dead servo and just read the pot voltage. ;-)

    As someone will probably note if I don't, some servo's (digital?) don't use
    a pot but use optical encoder's & up/down counters instead. This trick won't
    work on those servos. Most hobby servo's are not of that type.

    --
    Enjoy,
    George Warner,
    Schizophrenic Optimization Scientists
    Apple Developer Technical Support (DTS)
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