Question No motor drive using SMC3 utility

Hi. I am trying to build a 2DOF platform and I am using the Arduino Uno (compatible) board along with a MonsterMoto shield. I am following the SMC3 tutorial by @RufusDufus and after a few blown Arduino's I changed out the MonsterMoto with a new one and I now have progess. However, I still couldn't get any action from the motors, until I understood what the SMC utility was telling me. The pots I was using were "A" type and even though they were in the centre position the feedback line was outside the "max limits"

I swapped them out with "B" type and now the feedback is showing more or less in the centre. But yet again, no action. I reduced the clip limits and wound up the PWMmax and what I thought was the noise of the motors starting was in fact the MonsterMoto chip screaming and some very strange readouts. The motor light on the shield was on, the chip was getting hotter and hotter. I put the clip limits back to the 255 and did the same thing again, with the same result. I wasn't sure how to get the image of the utility program so I quickly turned off the motors and did a screen shot. The PWMmax reading was about 90. At one stage the motor did move very slightly but I couldn't get it to do it again.

Any thoughts, suggestions or advice would be very much appreciated. I have attached the pic showing the weird patterns of the yellow line (the PWM)

Cheers

Hi it would help if you could upload any photos of your wired setup, just to be sure that all is fine on this. You have to use "A" type, if your pots are out of the max limit we have to look at other issues, f.ex bad wiring, loose contacts etc. Anyway there are many sources of issues, so you have to go step by step and ideally from scratch.

Thanks for the response. Maybe my "A" pot was out of whack...?? When it was in the middle position it was reading 0.8 volts, making it read out of range. The "B" read about 3.0 volts in the centre position. As the motor moves one way or the other wouldn't that read more appropriately i.e. high (4-5 volts) and low (1-2 volts) depending on the desired motor position? It read well on the Utility screen measurements.

I have attached some pics trying to show the wiring connections. They show the individual boards but you should be able to follow the wiring colours and connecting terminals. I am sure it is the same as the wiring diagram shown in the tutorial, but feedback would be great. It is very primitive at this stage, so a bit messy. I am using the male to female pin wiring after soldering the required pins to the Monster shield. The wiper motors are from a late model Ford Ranger, base model.

Cheers

Just scanning your hardware I determine that you soldered with too high temperature. This can damage your electronic parts. Second always protect your wire against short circuits. Furthermore your potis may (not properly) work, I had a few of them just being crap, so did you ever test the poti only by using a multimeter? Then I do not recommend such thick wire for the 5V line...

Despite of your comment that all is primitive at this stage, you should not overlook that you will run into many issues if you do as you do:

Thanks @Pit . I will have a go at tidying it up and trying the process again.

I am and will be following this question and thread very closely as I am in pretty close to the exact situation.

I haven't had the weird readings or the hot chip but I can't get my motors to move! It's incredibly frustrating as the tutorial seems so straight forward but I feel like a complete useless ass... I will leave my testing for a night or two and come back to it with a fresh mind.

In any case it would be helpful to open a new thread, where you can describe the issues and upload any information we need, as for this thread we should keep clear of it. Thanks buddy.

I know this isn't my thread but as i commented mentioning similar issues, I thought I should provide an update on my outcome as it turns out the issues were different and if somebody else can look at the thread title, read through the posts and get something from my experience, that has to be helpful too.

After some earth isolating on the wiper motors and some weird and wonderful unexplained moments it appears to be working.

The good news is that the Arduino boards have come back to life, not completely fried as first thought. Maybe the initial shock stuffs them up but after the power dissipates when disconnected for a period of time they reset themselves...?? Again, another unexplainable moment.

Some of it was not understanding the SMC3 program very well. When I switched from the "monitor" output to "sine wave" one motor went a while then stopped. I moved to the other motor and a similar thing happened. I double checked all the connections and restarted everything again and this process happened a couple of times until they just both worked, when commanded. It felt like starting an old Massey Ferguson T20 tractor... Bit of choke... another crank... bit more choke... crank again

One question I still have is, should I be able to use the "off" and "on" buttons to do just that? If they are "on" I can click them but they don't change state. The only time they will turn off is if the feedback from the pots go outside the clip max setting, or I lower the PWMmax control.

All in all a good learning curve, but I wish I could have found something more obvious as to what was giving me the grief. Here's hoping when the son has finished making up the frame, getting the Sim Tools up and running is a tad smoother.

I appreciate all the info that is available on this site, so thanks to all involved.

having the same issue on my side aswel, i wonder if the arduino could be going out? my issue ha just recently started and nothing before that.