Separate stamps on SumoBot to handle the sensors so they don't slow down the se

Migs

Friends:

1. Is it possible to have a separate stamp board on a SumoBot to handle the sensors so they don't slow down the servos? How would I go about this? Has anyone done it? Assume I have two Boards of Education and I could stack them.
2. If I use one of the faster stamps can I negate this problem or is the 20ms between pulses the same for all stamps?

Thanks amigos, -Migs

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"Sometimes we forget that the world itself is paradise." Douglas Coupland, 'Microserfs'
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite" - William Blake
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." Carlos Castaneda
"One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer. " G. E. Lessing
“How much of human life is lost in waiting.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be remembered for their vices and follies than not be noticed at all.” Harry Truman
My website: www.intoku.net my e-mail:mreznicek@pretensa.com me:Miguel Reznicek

Franklin

The 20ms is a timing spec for the servo not the stamp. Servos want to see a pulse between 1 and 2 ms every 20 ms for their positioning and holding.

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- Stephen

Migs

Hi Stephen:

One of the things that can slow your SumoBot down is trying to read too many sensors between servo pulses. This is where I'm seeking advice.

Has anyone tried this Co-Processor kit from Blue Bell design? http://www.bluebelldesign.com/CoP_Bd_kit.htm

Migs

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"Sometimes we forget that the world itself is paradise." Douglas Coupland, 'Microserfs'
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite" - William Blake
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." Carlos Castaneda
"One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer. " G. E. Lessing
“How much of human life is lost in waiting.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be remembered for their vices and follies than not be noticed at all.” Harry Truman
My website: www.intoku.net my e-mail:mreznicek@pretensa.com me:Miguel Reznicek

D Faust

I don't think that the Boe will fit. If you use a faster stamp then you would be able do do a litle more between pulses. That might be enough time, or it might not. It depends on what you need to do. You could just monitor the sensors every other servo pulse so you wouldn't need to do all of them in 20 ms. I think the range is 20 to 50 ms The closer you go to 50 shouldn't slow them down though.

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LOOKDOWN ThisThread, [noparse][[/noparse]Your_?, My_?, Cool_Thing], looknum
LOOKUP looknum, [noparse][[/noparse]1, 2, 3], subnum
ON subnum GOTO Hope_this_helps, Thanks!, WOW!!
END 

Franklin

Take a look at the PWMPal www.parallax.com/search_results.asp?txtsearchParamTxt=pwmpal&txtsearchParamCat=ALL&txtsearchParamType=ALL&iLevel=1&txtsearchParamMan=ALL&txtsearchParamVen=ALL&txtFromSearch=fromSearch

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- Stephen

D Faust

You wouldn't be able to mount it under the stamp though (If you were using the Sumo board) You would have to mount it on a breadboard or something. This would help: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=661140

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LOOKDOWN ThisThread, [noparse][[/noparse]Your_?, My_?, Cool_Thing], looknum
LOOKUP looknum, [noparse][[/noparse]1, 2, 3], subnum
ON subnum GOTO Hope_this_helps, Thanks!, WOW!!
END 

Post Edited (D Faust) : 9/10/2007 12:28:33 AM GMT

Migs

Friends:

I'm not too clear how the PWMPAL would help. Can someone describe it in less arcane terms than its website description?

Thanks again-Migs

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Sometimes we forget that the world itself is paradise." Douglas Coupland, 'Microserfs'
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite" - William Blake
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." Carlos Castaneda
"One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer. " G. E. Lessing
“How much of human life is lost in waiting.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be remembered for their vices and follies than not be noticed at all.” Harry Truman
My website: www.intoku.net my e-mail:mreznicek@pretensa.com me:Miguel Reznicek

D Faust

It lets the user define the on and off time of a squarewave pulse.· You would tell it to have a 20 ms off time and a
1.5 ms on time to make a cr servo stop.· Hope this is clear enough.

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LOOKDOWN ThisThread, [noparse][[/noparse]Your_?, My_?, Cool_Thing], looknum
LOOKUP looknum, [noparse][[/noparse]1, 2, 3], subnum
ON subnum GOTO Hope_this_helps, Thanks!, WOW!!
END 

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

If you can wait a couple weeks, help is on the way. Parallax's ServoPAL should do what you want to offload the servo tasks, freeing your program to handle the sensor fusion. Attached is page one of the documentation to whet your appetite.

-Phil

Post Edited (Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)) : 9/10/2007 5:32:13 AM GMT

StampNut2

Migs, I have two of Harry's bluebell design co-processor boards and they work great. They offload all the hard work and allow the cpu to concentrate on the sensors.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypLXLVKQ3iE

Hope this helps out.

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Never give up when things go wrong.

Migs

Phil: Thanks for the ServoPAL information. I'll wait until it comes out!
StampNut2: Cool. The Blue Bell design definitely deserves some more investigation! Your round robot looked a little trapped in the all-too-small maze, but cool.

You gays are all great! -Migs

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"Sometimes we forget that the world itself is paradise." Douglas Coupland, 'Microserfs'
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite" - William Blake
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." Carlos Castaneda
"One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer. " G. E. Lessing
“How much of human life is lost in waiting.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be remembered for their vices and follies than not be noticed at all.” Harry Truman
My website: www.intoku.net my e-mail:mreznicek@pretensa.com me:Miguel Reznicek

Whit

Thanks for that post Phil. Looks like a neat product. Hope they are inexpensive! I will keep my eyes open.

Nice video StampNut2!

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Whit+


"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

Post Edited (Whit) : 9/10/2007 4:39:56 PM GMT

StampNut2

Migs: That vid was the first time I switched it on, I needed a small area just to check to see if all was well with the electronics, It proved that it worked well in a confined space.
The co-processor kit was pretty cheap and easy to put together. www.bluebelldesign.com/ Harry has been brilliant with his explanations of how this co-processor works and the sharing of his knowledge on this product, I believe that he has just brought out a revamped version of the two I have.

Whit: These boards are worth looking at working in conjunction with the stamp.

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Never give up when things go wrong.

Post Edited (StampNut2) : 9/10/2007 6:14:25 PM GMT

Migs

StampNut2:

Thanks for the information! I discovered a few new toys from this thread and I'm eager to try them both. It was nice to know what is coming up in the Parallax mind as well.

Migs

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Sometimes we forget that the world itself is paradise." Douglas Coupland, 'Microserfs'
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite" - William Blake
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." Carlos Castaneda
"One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer. " G. E. Lessing
“How much of human life is lost in waiting.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be remembered for their vices and follies than not be noticed at all.” Harry Truman
My website: www.intoku.net my e-mail:mreznicek@pretensa.com me:Miguel Reznicek

Humanoido

I built two humanoid robots using Basic Stamp 2 microcontrollers.
In the first humanoid, BS2s were added to handle many
sensor functions, and a serial servo controller handled servo
motor movements. BS2s can be networked together as
described in the main stamp manual, or can simply send
data back and forth on a port. The humanoid used 6 servos.
It should be less of a challenge to operate only 2.

humanoido

Grievousfish

I'll dogpile on this as well. The Bluebell coprocessor unit works great (I have several myself) but you can also add another Stamp and set it up in a slave relationship and delegate control of servos or sensors to it as D Faust and humanoido described. If you haven't already, you might also try incoporating a polling approach to reading your sensors although I am not sure how appropriate that might be for sumo (I've never competed in those events)