6DOF extension prototype boards arrived finally

First of all, Happy New Year.

After a long waiting, my 6DOF extension boards arrived from France. I wish there was a "next day" PCB service. No matter what you use, it will take at least a month to make boards (production + shipping time etc).

I made them single layer with a few jumper connections on the top side. I was going to use PCB jumpers for the data connections to the various modules but in the end I just soldered them on the bottom leaving one row for each signal set exposed for special interfacing. Since there was no option for silkscreen I had to resort placing the port labels on the connectors, but I think that it look good.

I started assembling them yesterday and I hope all will be ready by Friday for shipping all around the world. The post office lady will hate me for having to process that many custom declaration forms.

Here are some photos of the tests I performed on them as well some details:

Thanos
2013

AMC644USB 6DOF firmware menu system features

Hi,

I just finished the coding for the user menu of the 6DOF addon and I made a short (?) video explaining its operation:

AMC644USB 6DOF firmware 1.0b menu system features(click to see in Youtube)

Or here stabilized version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z47_-_X7YBE

Available options on the menu system are:

1. How many DOF (degrees of freedom), 2DOF - 6DOF.

2. Resolution of data format from PC, 16-bit (65535 positions) or 8-bit (256 positions).

3. PID settings for all terms, P, I and D.

4. Max speed of the motors.

5. Min speed of the motors.

6. Limits of the feedback devices (potentiometers or hall effect)

Among others, depending on the DOF (number of motors) that are used and the resolution, it runs the position control algorithms from 1000 to 3600 times per second. I had to sacrifice some speed over safety and accuracy. But the fact that the speed is adjustable by how many motors are being used is more than great!

A test of the 6DOF hardware with Ian's 6DOF BFF software

Hi,

Today I performed some tests of the 6DOF hardware on Ian's 6DOF BFF motion software successfully. He added just yesterday a new 16-bit data format just for my 6DOF hardware (BIN2TH).

I run the tests with 230Kbps serial speed.

Flight tests on FSX using 6DOF BFF

Ground effects test using 6DOF BFF

This is a great software. After you set correctly all the dimensions of the actuators and the platform it works pretty much out of the box.

Thanks Ian!!

6DOF extension board visual demonstration

On waiting for the 6DOF extension boards to arrive, I did some more testing on the 6DOF code and took the opportunity to make a little video:

The six axis where connected to x-sim receiving 16-bit positioning values on 230Kbps. I set the sliders to move automatically. I hooked up only three potentiometers, that's why the last three axis feedback show full value. For the analog and digital outputs I used some led strips.


Thanos

New speed tests with 6DOF code

Hi,

Today I made new tests with the 6DOF code to see the response while having to receive data for 6 motors. I did tests with 8-bit data (256) and 16-bit data (65535).

I got similar response timing with my old code that was only for 2DOF. And there is almost no difference having to deal with 8-bit and 16-bit format data for each axis. The program loop speed now is 4Khz (or 4000 times per second).

New LCD layout to display all 6 axis (6DOF) 

6DOF 8-bit data (256) timing using 115kbps serial speed

6DOF 8-bit data (256) timing using 230kbps serial speed

6DOF 16-bit (65535) timing using 230kbps serial speed

As you can see in the timing captures I fixed the introduced delay that existed until the whole data packet was received. So the loop cycle timing remains constant always.



Thanos

New addon: 6DOF extension board for AMC644USB

Something new is coming...

I got some extra outputs available... say 6 analog and 12 digital...

Anyone for a 6DOF extension?

Thanos