Trying out a Teensy 3.1 on a PhantomX Hexapod (or maybe Quad)

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KurtE

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Not sure if anyone would be interested, but thought I would mention, that I have been playing around with a Teensy 3.1 to see how well it would work to control one of my Hexapods or Quads. I have a few different robots I could try it out on, some with RC servos as well with a PhantomX Hexapod and quad that use AX-12 servos. I decided to first try it out on the PhantomX. I have the Lynxmotion Phoenix code base that I ported to the Arduino as well as to several Linux boxes up on github..

So the first thing to solve was to figure out how to use one of the hardware serial ports to control AX-12 servos, that communicate at 1mb in half duplex. Luckily I found enough information up here to figure it out. With that I made a modified version of the Arbotix(Trossen Robotics) Bioloid library, which I modifed to work with arduino serial objects. I did this earlier to see if it was possible to use a standard Arduino megas hardware port with a simple jumper wire instead of custom code. Looks promising on Arduino 1.5.x branch, with some mods that are being tested... So I modified this library to work with the Teensy, which at init time tells the serial port to go into half duplex, and also updates the TX pin direction at the appropriate times. Appears to work so far. Put a copy of this up on github: https://github.com/KurtE/BioloidSerial Included as an example is my AX12 test program that I use to test stuff out on the PhantomX.

Note: I have the serial port connected through a 150 ohm resistor to a powered AX-12 hub. I have also connected up an XBee to the Teensy as well. I now have a version of my Phantom_Phoenix project working with this setup. Which has been fun.

So, I thought it might be fun to have a teensy setup with an adapter board that has all of the things I like, for a simple robot controller board, so I started playing around with diptrace, and laid out a board, that has the Lynxmotion/Basic Micro form factor (3" x 2.3") as to make it fit on several of my robots.
DipTrace-Beta-PCB---Teensy-.jpg
It has a power buss, with a 5v and 3.3v voltage regulator (not sure if it was wise to leave XBee powered directly from Teensy), XBee, Speaker, 3 pin connectors for most of the IO pins (punted on the ones on the bottom), 4 AX-12 connectors, with jumpers to enable/disable the different things, possible PUs for SCL/SDA... Thought it was far enough along to try it out, so will have a few fabricated by Osh Park... Will see how bad I screwed up.

The bright side is I am just doing it for the fun of it.

Kurt
 
Yep - I have a license for both DipTrace and Eagle and I personally prefer Dip Trace, so I use it. I mainly use Eagle to export stuff to .scr files to import into diptrace.
 
If you want to use DipTrace on Linux, does it have to be loaded thru Wine? It appears that way, but I can't find a definitive answer.
 
It appears to need wine to run on Linux. The new beta download shows that. For the fun of it I downloaded the beta to a secondary notebook that I have running Linux Mint and it downloaded an .exe file which I needed to start up using Wine.
 
Thought I would mention, that I received my fabricated v .01 boards back, plus a couple of new green Teensy 3.1 boards from pjrc and parts from digi-key and yesterday I assembled the first one. Now starting to play :D

Already know a few things I would do different if I do a new version, like bigger power connector. Maybe cut the USB power connector and put jumpers on board to select if I want the board to be powered by USB or not... But so far it is working.

Teensy-3.1-Breakout-populat.jpg
 
Quick update here: I have been playing around with the board and having fun. Currently on a rover, so I can test out some other stuff like my version of the roboclaw library. Also updated the Arduino Playstation 2 controller library to work. Having a slightly different board fabricated. Actually trying out OSHPark and Seeedstudio on fabricating a few again...

But while I was at it, there were a couple of people mentioning that they would like Arduino Header support. So while waiting for a few things, I started hacking away again in Dip Trace. and have a version that might work:
Teensyduino-.00001.jpg

More details up on Lynxmotion Forum (http://www.lynxmotion.net/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9119&start=15) as well as Trossen Robotics (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?6632-PhantomX-using-a-Teensy-3.1/page8)

Not sure yet if I will fabricate any of these, but having fun!
 
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