2Dof Project

Here's some of my settings .let me know if you need more. Interesting that when I play the game I get output data in the tuning area. I'm lost .

Question. When were directed to test the motors in sim utils we have to turn all settings to zero and slowly increase. Those settings are still at zero for both motors. Does that matter? Or does it affect simtools in any way? I closed simutils before using simtools as noted in another post.

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Perfect. Thanks for the explanation. I unfortunately have an issue with my cheap Chinese uno . Just waiting for the real deal to come in. Wasn't getting any movement at all even in sim utils . Sabertooth seems to be fine thank god.

Btw. Do you have a preset your willing to share?

With regards to configuration: If everything is running in SMC3 and also in Simtools and then you find out, when testing with LFS for example, that up is down and down is up (or better): When braking, the rig goes up, when accelerating the rig goes down --> wrong direction.
Can you easily fix this at the "software side", e.g. in Simtools ?

Well success. I managed to get everything working. Not tuned but working. I have a few questions. What are optimal settings for SMC3? Fpid/Kp/Ki/Kd/Ks/Fpwm/Pwmin/Pwmax/pwrev/Max limits/Clip input and deadzone? Or is there instructions im missing? Also live for speed it seems that surge goes side to side instead of front to back. Sway seems to be fine side to side. I tried all possible settings with no avail. Thanks

So I'm smc3 motors test out fine and verge to the green line. I noticed in the square wave test the right motor goes up and down and the left motor goes down and up. Not sure this is how it works? I tried switching the motor leads and when I start up smc3 the motor just spins around and around. For sure in simtools surge and away make the rig move left and righ. Even using the orange boxes in different configurations makes no difference. Suggestions welcome .cheers .

When the motor turns around & around in SMC3, the motor wires need to be swapped, which means you need to connect them as before.
See the second item of step 17 in this tutorial.
About the orange boxes in SimTools: They reverse the motor direction. Take surge as an example: If you have both boxes marked (orange) and the motors turn in different directions, just disable one of the boxes, which will reverse the corresponding motor. Now both motors should move in the same direction.

Thanks for the reply. That seemed to work. I have both orange squares checked on surge and one on sway and it seems to work correctly now. I'm finding the feedback harsh and jerky though. When turning in live for speed its not smooth at all. Any suggestions to smooth things out? Also any idea how to make shift more snappy instead of a slow jerk? Thanks all. Getting there

Okay .Figured it out with the tuning tool. Things are a lot better. My worry is my scm3 settings. Anything higher in the pwmmax or min and my sabertooth shuts off. I'm by no means unhappy with the feedback at that level .Its quite violent as it is. Any suggestions? Or just leave it be? Also. Is there any need for the ks ki kd settings?

It's just a guess, but can it be that it is not the Sabertooth who shuts off, but the SMC3 software?
If your motor curve passes the Max Limits line, SMC3 shuts down the motor for protection purposes.
The other related parameter is Clip Input: If the motor curve passes this one, SMC3 gives reverse power to the motors. So you could try to increase Max Limits, so that first the reverse power is applied, and only if this is not enough, the motors are shut down.
Please see this post for details about all SMC3 parameters, which may also answer your questions about Ks, Ki, and Kd.

I ended up lowering my kp to 120 and upped my pwmmax to 155 and now everything is smooth as butter. Movement is fast and surge is snappy. Is it unusual to have such a low KP? Any higher and the motors are very jerky and rough. I was following the tutorial with the suggested 400 KP and it just did not work well?

So here is the final build. Just have to mount my shifter. I may have to press in a new ujoint yoke. It has some play and rattles a bit. Otherwise it's done. More fine tuning with the software but everything seems to work. Pretty happy with it.

I'll try to get a video uploaded in the next week. Cheers. Thanks again for your assistance.