LabVIEW and Propeller Robot Controller

Comments

• StephenMoore Posts: 188

  2012-04-13 22:01 edited 2012-04-13 22:01

  What do you need LabView for?
  
  Let the Prop do it all.
  
  However, you are probably going to interface right through the Prop USB port using a COM on the PC so you need to allocate a data structure on the PC side and reserve similar data format in memory on the Prop. Two cogs will handle all of this using FullDuplexSerial and your data handler routine.
  
  Just how you read and set your PWM routines for the Victors may be a little different than the Servos so be careful there.
  
  Sounds like a lot of fun!
  
  sm
• maldridge Posts: 37

  2012-04-14 08:47 edited 2012-04-14 08:47

  I need labview and a PC because I have to have a USB host. I am building this as a robot controller for a class to use. Essentially, there is a PC and a board with all the high voltage stuff on it, and the robots are connected through tethers. Students will drive thier robots using USB gamepads, which replace the more vulnerable IFI system we have currently. In labview I have my datatype set up so that it sends 1 header byte, 6 bytes for speed/servo control and 2 more bytes for switching the relays and solenoid.
  
  The person I spoke with at NI said that it was simple serial, and that if I could just read in the data by knowing how many bytes to look for, that would work. That is where I hit the brick wall of not knowing how to deal with the input on the other side. For example, I know that in pbasic, I could use the serin command and just supply it with my variables, but I don't know how to do that with spin.
  
  Thanks for the speedy reply.
• StephenMoore Posts: 188

  2012-04-14 12:27 edited 2012-04-14 12:27

  The counter part to SERIN is FullDuplexSrial.rx
  The counterpart to SEROUT is FullDuplexSerial.tx
  
  e.g.
  

  CON     _clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x
          _xinfreq = 5_000_000
  
  
  VAR
          byte      myCharArray[6]
  
  
  OBJ
          comm: "FullDuplexSerial"
  
  
  PUB     myComm | idx
  
  
          comm.Start(31,30,0,115200)           ' start serial communication driver
    repeat
          repeat while comm.rxcheck == -1      ' wait for a byte to be received
  
  
          repeat idx from 0 to 5               ' read the entire packet into my data type
           myCharArray[idx] := comm.rx
  
  
          repeat idx from 0 to 5               ' echo the entire message back
           comm.tx(myCharArray[idx])  
  
  
  
  
• maldridge Posts: 37

  2012-04-16 18:09 edited 2012-04-16 18:09

  hmm, I had problems where that was eating bytes, and I redefined the way my serial protocol works, so this is what I eventually came up with.
  

  'Bert Field Controller'Written by: Michael Aldridge
  '            with much assistance from Carlos Gross Jones
  'Date Modified: 4.14.12
  
  
  CON
    _clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x
    _xinfreq = 5_000_000
  
  
  VAR
    byte P1VIC1
    byte P1VIC2
    byte P1SERV
    byte P1RLY1
    byte P1RLY2
    byte P1PNUE
  
  
    byte P2VIC1
    byte P2VIC2
    byte P2SERV
    byte P2RLY1
    byte P2RLY2
    byte P2PNUE
  
  
  
  
  OBJ
    link  : "FullDuplexSerial"
  
  
  
  
  PUB Main
  link.start(31, 30, 0, 115200)
  
  
  repeat
    link.str(string("ready to receive",13))
    serWait
    acquireData
    convertVals                                
  
  
  PUB serWait
     repeat while 1
          repeat while NOT (link.rx == 65)
          link.str(string("first char correct",13))
          if link.rx == 65
            link.str(string("second char correct",13))
            return
          else
            next
            
  
  
  PUB acquireData
    
  P1VIC1:=link.rx
  P1VIC2:=link.rx
  P1SERV:=link.rx
  P1RLY1:=link.rx
  P1RLY2:=link.rx
  P1PNUE:=link.rx
  
  
  P2VIC1:=link.rx
  P2VIC2:=link.rx
  P2SERV:=link.rx
  P2RLY1:=link.rx
  P2RLY2:=link.rx
  P2PNUE:=link.rx
  link.str(String("PACKET RECIEVED",13))
           
  
  
  PRI convertVals
  
  
  P1VIC1:=P1VIC1-127
  P1VIC2:=P1VIC2-127
  P1SERV:=P1SERV-127
  
  
  P2VIC1:=P2VIC1-127
  P2VIC2:=P2VIC2-127
  P2SERV:=P2SERV-127
  

  
  now to just write the PWM code...
• StephenMoore Posts: 188

  2012-04-16 22:18 edited 2012-04-16 22:18

  You may want to consider changing the baud rate if LabView can't keep up. Otherwise you are on your way. Spin is a great language and the Prop is a very powerful chip.
• Circuitsoft Posts: 1,166

  2012-04-17 06:56 edited 2012-04-17 06:56

  For PWM, I highly recommend PhiPi's PWMx8 object.
• Circuitsoft Posts: 1,166

  2012-04-17 07:00 edited 2012-04-17 07:00

  Actually, you may want to look at Victor 88x Speed Controller Driver and Servo32v7.
• maldridge Posts: 37

  2012-04-18 19:12 edited 2012-04-18 19:12

  I wound up using the servo library, it did pretty much exactly what I wanted, but now I am having problems with the relays. For those of you that are familiar with them, I am using SPIKE relays from IFI. They are driven by two pins in different combinations of on and off to get two directions, off, and both terminals at V+.
  
  Here is where it gets weird, on my protoboard where I have a dip plus kit, it works fine (with LED's, the SPIKE is at school right now), but on the board I intend to use, a servo controller board, it does all kinds of weird things such as oscillating states, wrong output configuration and other things that are seemingly random.
  
  Any ideas?
  
  EDIT:
  alright, I have tracked down the oscillating state to a bad connection, but now I have a problem where it will just turn on all pins at once, instead of the one I write the logical state to. Any ideas?