On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 12:45 PM, toblueiis
toblueiis@yahoo.com [B9Builders] wrote:
Hello Dave,
thanks for your very kind words. It has been great working through this with you. I am so glad for you that you have made so much progress. Progress that has been hard earned.
I think that if DE would do a better job with their documentation, they wouldn't hardly need customer support. They seem to have a great product, but this is not a project to have to stumble through your efforts. Maybe we need to make a translation guide for their terminology to what common technical terms that the rest of the world uses (actually, I am serious on this point).
As you mention OCD, I think that many of us equate with you. I think about the great inventors of our past who had a determined spirit to work through such difficult situations seeking to find solutions to problems that they saw as resolvable, though they had such limited technology in their day. Edison wasn't trying to invent a bettter and more efficient light bulb, he just wanted to invent one that worked. Today, these great inventors would be condemned for their OCD and be told that they needed medication. The world doesn't understand commitment, dedication, and perseverance. It is great that you do have this spirit of determination and perseverance and that you share your learning with the rest of us. I will also say that you are a great encourager. You are one of those people in life that I would rather struggle through a difficult problem with, than to deal with others on an easy problem. You are a great contributor to the club, in many ways
thanks,
David M.
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 1/17/16,
dschulpius@gmail.com [B9Builders] wrote:
Subject: [B9Builders] Re: B9 Arm centering issue demo
To:
B9Builders@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, January 17, 2016, 11:05 AM
Just a short update (I hope). Edit: Nope, it a long
one.
I have not heard back from Spectra Symbol about the
Softpot or Dimension Engineering regarding the Kangaroo X2.
It's been almost 2 weeks now. I did send a second
request but nothing back. I'm very disappointed in them
but not really surprised. DE puts out great products but
myself and other people I personally know have found their
customer support spotty and slim. Also, I do have a little
history with Spectra Symbol's customer support. The one
other time I asked for help from them I got a quick
responce. Not this time. It would be nice if these companies
don't know how to help to just send me a reply saying
they don't know. This may not be the case but I'm
left with the impression that they just ignored my request
for assistance.
So, as usual I'm left with the feeling that I
have to figure stuff like this out on my own. However, thank
goodness I'm wrong about that! I've had many fellow
builders jump in and lend a hand with support, ideas and
advice. You guys are wonderful and have helped in more ways
than you know. I really have to mention a certain builder by
the name of Davis H. from Louisiana. He has spent hours
personally studying this issue and more then two full hours
on the phone with me going through the issue step by step.
It doesn't seem enough to say "Thanks
David"!
Anyway David H. has suggested many things that may be
causing this issue of not being able to get the arm motor to
stop at the same point depending on which side of the radius
it's being approached from. I think that the total sum
of this issue is a combination of a few of the problems
David and others have identified. I've been working
through most of these suggestions and have made some real
progress and also eliminated a few things that were not the
issue.
So far the things I've done that have really made
a difference:
Reduce the speed of the arm over all and more so as
it reached the set point. I found this to be the best way to
reach a consistent set point.
Reduce all the deadband values as far as I could
without getting a rocking action as it's trying to stay
at the set point. Using the DeScribe software I found there
are at least 3 deadband settings. Two for position and one
for speed.
After I did some studying on PID adjustments and what
they really are I tried to adjust the Coefficient values in
the PID section. The Autotune filled these in for me but as
I said before I had to redo them to get the motor to respond
smoothly. With better understanding of each setting I was
able to get better resolution of the set point (the point
I'm trying to stop at). I was now able to stop with in a
constant 2 or 3mv on each side of my set point. (I have to
say here that the terms that DE uses for the different Gains
are not the same as the rest of the world uses. They use
terms like Fast and Slow Gain) This makes it even more
difficult for the newbie to understand what needs to be set
and changed).
Even though this resolution may have been enough to
give me the tolerance I need on centering my arm my OCD
kicked in. I thought I can do better then this. So I took
another step David H. suggested and replaced the !0K
resistors on the pos & neg pins between the Softpot and
the Kangaroo X2. This would give me almost the full 5v (4.8
in think) that the Kangaroo is supplying the Softpot and
expecting back to read (feedback) the variance as the arm
moves. With the 10K resistors I was only getting 1.6 volts
around the pot. Well, This change through off all my PID and
limit settings in the Roo. None of my old setting would work
and the arm was unusable.
I had to try to do a new autotune and I was not
looking forward to it. In the past (only on this arm setup)
I was never able to get a successful tune with the arm fully
weighted down. After removing the arm from the robot and
mounting it directly to my workbench I tried a few autotunes
and failed. The software always reported back that it
"couldn't move the system" even thought the
thing was rocking up and down wildly. Obviously the Kangaroo is not able to auto tune
such a heavy asymmetrical load as I have. So I took off the
front claw section (about 4 pounds) and attempted another
Autotune. This time I had a quick and successful tune. When
I tested the tune I had nice smooth action with nice ramping
effect. However when I reattached the 4 pound claw section
the movement sucked.
At least now I had a good baseline tune to work with.
These past two days I've spent about 10 hours resetting
and testing the PID settings for the Roo with the DeScribe
software. Late last night I've finally got the arm
moving smoothly with nice ramping. I think I have the
resolution very close to where I can get this thing stopped
at within one MV of my set point. At least that's what I
can see in the Live Test section of the DeScribe Software.
Today I'll hook this monstrosity up the EZB and see if
all this did any good.
Thanks again to all of yo that has lent a
hand. Thank for nothing DE and SS!
Dave Schulpius
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