Axon II and SSC-32

[Steve_E_C]

I'm trying to decide if the Axon II will be a good replacement for my current ssc-32, or is running both prefered.

I typed a huge post and attached an image (that exceeded the boards limit in size) and lost the whole thing  

So here's the short version of my long winded (and more informative) question.

[KurtEck]

For me it would depend.  Probably some of this was said in your first attempted post. Things like what your project is, how many servos are you trying to control, Is there another processor involved...

What are you trying to do with it.  If you are for example only controlling a few servos for lets say a biped, you could easily do this without an SSC-32. I have for example developed code for a Lynxmotion Brat with 7 servos that works great.

Now however if you are lets say trying to do a 3DOF hexapod with 18 servos then you might be able to do it, but it sure would be easier with an SSC-32 to offload the work to.  That is to control the 18 servos at least some of them would have to have software generated pulses, would eat up a reasonable amount of processing power.  Then if you wish to do a group move of all 18 servos (that is you wish to move all of them from their current locations to a new location and have all 18 of them arrive at their new positions at the same time), that will eat up more of your processing time.  The SSC-32 does this for you.  I wrote a version of this for my brat that works as a scheduler task on webbotlib. 

Offloading all of this to the SSC-32 saves the processing power for the Axon to be able to do the real work.  In the case of lets say a hexapod, things like getting input, deciding what to do, IK for the legs and the like.

Also depending on what you are connecting, the SSC-32 will probably handle more current as you can supply two different VS supplies for the two sides of the board...

So in summary it depends...

Kurt

[Steve_E_C]

Thanks Kurt for the reply.

The project I am working on is a Lynxmotion J5 robot, SSC-32, 15 servos (2 digital) and a 2x5 driver using 2 channels. Pico ITX computer and webcams. I connect via RDP and interactively control the BOT at this time, It is on the LAN with wifi. The PC has RoboRealm, SEQ, VBasic with Pose, MRDS express and other utilities. Although I'm just starting to decide on a path to take for programming. I will primarily focus on interactive for now but want to work on semi-autonomous in the very near future with the use of object tracking and obstacle avoidance. With simple VR down the road.  

My interest in the Axon II is primarily for sensors, but am interested to know if it will handle the servos and driver as well, your reply indicates that it's best to offload this to the SSC-32 to save overhead. Makes sense as I do plan on programming group moves frequently and I separated VL and VS power sources on the SSC-32 for this reason. I was wanting to remove the SSC-32 merely to simplify hardware install.

I also am interested to know what software people are using currently for the Axon II with the most success, obviously RoboRealm is a good option. Id really like to trigger events, such as if a color is identified, a group move and a position is processed. But now I'm just dreaming

For this post, No image attachments!

Steve  

[Admin]

I typed a huge post and attached an image (that exceeded the boards limit in size) and lost the whole thing

Hmmmm Chrome, and I think Firefox also, allows you to just hit the back button and it restores your typed text.

That is to control the 18 servos at least some of them would have to have software generated pulses, would eat up a reasonable amount of processing power.

WebbotLib uses interrupts to trigger pulses, and not do-nothing delays which would waste processing power (like in my old original Axon code). Simply put, its not a concern

[Steve_E_C]

I typed a huge post and attached an image (that exceeded the boards limit in size) and lost the whole thing

Hmmmm Chrome, and I think Firefox also, allows you to just hit the back button and it restores your typed text.

That is to control the 18 servos at least some of them would have to have software generated pulses, would eat up a reasonable amount of processing power.

WebbotLib uses interrupts to trigger pulses, and not do-nothing delays which would waste processing power (like in my old original Axon code). Simply put, its not a concern

Not with IE8

Your reply is appericiated. Thanks for addressing my question.