Cold solder on the p.Brain-u24 HexEngine

[quadrocopter]

Finally, it is up "walking"
After my local supplier had ordered wrong servos (if you want a Hexapod, remember to order a complete kit from the Micromagic shop )and some hours of troubleshooting on p.Brain-u24 HexEngine board - the Hexapod woke to live!.
Cold solder on one of the 74HC238 (in the multiplexer) got the left and right Anterior legs to go completely bananas ......
After resoldering, calibration and some minor adjustments - my Hexapod is moving as expected and I'm happy.

Now it's time to start the next project - getting a Spektrum RC transmitter to control the Hexapod.
This was a greater challenge than I first thought since the p.Brain interface don't have any direct support for a composite PPM signal.
I'll solve this problem by converting PPM information to ascii "Sim Control or PIP" commands and feed this into the "bluetooth" serial port.
But this is new project and I'll come back to it in another thread here on this forum.

Frank

[Matt Denton]

Hi Frank,

Glad to see your up and running! Sorry about the dry solder joint, you should have let me know, I would have replaced the board

As for your PWM to serial interface, you would be best using the PIP interface, as it will allow you much higher degree of control. Also, you can send the signal into the Second TTL control port on p.Brain, this way you don't need to convert to bluetooth or rs232.

[quadrocopter]

.....Glad to see your up and running! Sorry about the dry solder joint, you should have let me know, I would have replaced the board

Hi Matt
No problems, I love to troubleshoot electronics

As for your PWM to serial interface, you would be best using the PIP interface, as it will allow you much higher degree of control. Also, you can send the signal into the Second TTL control port on p.Brain, this way you don't need to convert to bluetooth or rs232.

I was a bit inaccurate in my description
The idea was to create a small PPM two serial (TTL) module and plug it into the Bluetooth socket, but I see that it is OK to have a serial connection as well so I expect that it ends up connected to the RJ45 serial port.

-Frank-

[Matt Denton]

I was a bit inaccurate in my description
The idea was to create a small PPM two serial (TTL) module and plug it into the Bluetooth socket, but I see that it is OK to have a serial connection as well so I expect that it ends up connected to the RJ45 serial port.

Ok, so you would unplug the bluetooth module and supply TTL serial direct, that makes more sense, however, you would still probably be better off using CN1, this is a second TTL control port, that supports the API interface only, no terminal config etc, and is on a 0.1" pin header

Take a look at the User Manual. page 3.