Resolved First Beta test for a K8055 Interface - SimTools

V2 update at bottom of post beware most of the instructions need to be rewritten

After many request from people about using a K8055 interfaces connected to a sabertooth motor controller to drive motion simulator in SimTools.
I have finally found the time to create a beta app to check my maths and see if I can drive one motor via the DAC of the K8055 as in the same way @-kevin- 's post works.

The aim of this beta is to check -

Direction is correct - as in motor turns the opposite way of the pot
To see if a slider is needed to limit the overall speed the motors will move at
Pot scaling I have implemented to scale the pots min and max values so the user can set it correctly.
Startup and closing operation of the card

Once all of these points have been addressed within the app I can implement the second motor control and Beta 2 can be tested in the same manner and finally then incorporate it with SimTools as a custom interface app.

Please bear with me, I want to make sure this right and the same quality of simulation is maintained.




Thanks @-kevin- for the wiring picture.


Note 1: Only wiring for one motor is used in the beta app , if motor 2 is connected it will spin with no control, so to test please remove the power line going to Motor 2 or it will take off when the app starts up.

Note 2: If you have already previously used the K8055 then the dll is already installed, if not please install the dll to the correct place as per the instructions on the Velleman site. http://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?country=be&lang=en&id=351346

Stage 1
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1. Wire as advised.
2. Turn off the power to the sabertooth to start or motor will start spinning before app loads.
3. Plug in K8055 and wait til it powers up and settles.
4. Start the beta app.
5. Click Check DLL - should return the Version Number of the DLL, Im using 4.0.0.0
6. Set the Card Address you have set on the K8055
7. Select the DAC Pin on the K8055 that S1 from the Sabertooth is connected too.
8. Click Apply pin
9. Make sure the Enable Motor is unchecked.
10. Click Connect - Should immediately see the card has reported back to the app that it is connected.

You will also note that the DAC pin you selected and is producing 2.5 volts to the S1 pin and the motor should stay stationary plus in the Motor Status the DAC used is 127 and Direction states that it is disabled.
Aswell in this same area you will see that the Real Position is related to where the pot is positioned, please wind the pot back and forth to see that its moving the slider, middle position should read 0 set it there and leave
I will explain scaling the overall pot movements later, yes this does that too.

Ok please test:

1. With pot reading 127 in the Motor 1 Setup area.
2. Power on the sabertooth, if I got it right(cross me fingers) the motor should not rotate as it is disabled.
3. Check Enable Motor 1 - and the DAC used should be 127 at pot position 0 and Direction should read "Stopped"
4. Now by rotating the pot cw the motor should spin ccw
5. Now by rotating the pot ccw the motor should spin cw till the pot is 0 in the real position the and the motor should stop.
6. Now by rotating the pot further ccw the motor should spin cw

Note: At anytime you can uncheck the Enable Motor 1 and the motor should stop.

Now if the motor is spinning in its right directions , should be the opposite way the pot is moving then we are ready to test positional control.
If happy close it all down and turn off the power to the Sabertooth and connect the pot back to the motor shaft and begin stage 2 test.

Stage 2.​

Testing the K8055 with the Set Target slider by manually moving it with the mouse or the arrow keys on the keyboard for finer movements (not sure if that will be effective but please test anyway) plus with the slider selected home key will will send it straight to 0 and end key will send it to 255 too.

Setup and test as follows :

1. Please make sure the power to the sabertooth is off to start with or motor will start spinning before app loads.
2. Plug in K8055 and wait til it powers up and settles.
3. Start the beta app.
4. Set the Card Address you have set on the K8055
7. Select the DAC Pin on the K8055 that S1 from the Sabertooth is connected too.
8. Click Apply pin
9. Make sure the Enable Motor is unchecked.
10. Click Connect - Should immediately see the card has reported back to the app that it is connected and the
the PWN1 led should be at 50% of its brightness
11. Turn on the sabertooth , motor should stay stable.
12. Make sure motor arm is about near its centre position.
13. Check Enable Motor 1 - if real position is 0 then the motor should not move.
Now the big test !!!
14. Move the Set Target slider and hopefully the motor should follow the slider being aware it will use the
full pot travel.
15. If sucessfull then we can uncheck the Enable Motor 1 and now scale the pots values to where we want the arm
to hold its max and min positions, plus the centre position should be exactly between theses values.
16. You will need to power down the Sabertooth as it will be holding it position with the Motor Un enabled.
17. Now move the lever to its maximum position noting that the value will be higher than 127,
18. Press Pot Max and you should see the pots Max is immediately scaled and the real position now reads Scaled Position.
19. Now move the lever to it minumum position noting that the value will be lower than 127,
20. Press Pot Min and you should see the pots Min is immediately scaled.

Please test the levers positions by moving the lever and the scaled positions -255 and 255 should relate back to the positions you have selected above. At any stage you are not happy with the scaling range , simply press Reset Scale and the values and scale should return to 0 and 255 and scale position should now read real position.

Repeat steps 16 - 20 to rescale the pot.

Now return the lever to near centre and the set target slider to 127 (centre) and power the sabertooth up and check Enable Motor 1 and continue to test with the Manual slider to see if the scaling works correctly.

If all good, I hope so but bound to be a bug I havent found, I can then release the 2nd beta which will control 2 motors then if all is well the app will then become live with SimTools.

Stage 3
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1 .Last test, shutting down the app should leave the k8055 in a state of stopped the motor should stay still.

Sorry this may seem a long process, as I have a K8055 but can not afford at present to buy myself a sabertooth or I wouldnt be asking for testers, I would test and prefect it in private.

Open Beta is scary for me.

Please beaware you motors are powerful enough to remove a finger, or even cause other injurys so please be careful and in no time we will open the wonderful world of SimTools to all the K8055 users and then continue to make sure this app meets our strict requirement to be a resource for sim builders, mutiply K8055 sims could even be in the near future.

Any questions, please ask away, without your efforts this would not be possible and all that helps in the beta testing will result in a permant thank you credit with in the app for all to see, forever.

Thanks guys.

Too come -
2 motor control. - done
SimTools intergration.
Slider to set overall speed used in movement. - done
? remote leds to show what state the K8055 is in , ie direction of motors got 8 digital pin doing nothing.
? button control to turn off or on the motors, remotely a sort of safety switch or could be done automaticlly with limit switches.

Thanks and goodluck
EaoRobbie

V2 - Dual Dynamic Motor Control

All setting can be saved and reloaded
Pots can be scaled and inverted
All setting can be changed live , affect the motor control as its changed, Live tunning.
Give it a go and any suggestions , please

Great job Robby
When I have time I start to play around and learn simtools and test your application for K8055.

Rob,
I was talking to David (BFST) this evening and he mentioned your dilema, then I saw your message on the forum.
I have a Sabertooth I'm not using at the moment that I'd be only too happy to mail over to you for your research for as long as it takes no worries, mail it back whenever.
Been hanging on to it for yonks with traction loss in mind, but very sloooow getting there.
Trevor

Hello Rob, I did a quick test tonight and when I plug the card is not coming out of my K8055 card but connect 0
But I see that the DAC 1, the light increases and decreases when I move the lever but the engine runs without control of the pot.



I have the DLL_v5.0.0.0 because my card and k8055N
http://www.velleman.eu/support/downloads/?code=VM110N&type=9

Ok firstly thanks for testing.
Ok is the address of the card the same, I have it set as default with both jumpers attached.
But sounds like the card connected.

1. You have set the pot min and max backwards, pot Max should be above 127 and pot min should be below 127, sorry code doesn't support inverting the pot, but I will add this , nice find.

With the min max set correctly and pot is unattached from the motor and manual set target set to 127 is the direction of movement correct while moving the pot.

2. Different card shouldn't matter.

Nice work!

Thank you for the work you're doing. If I can help I do it willingly for the community so we can help to many people who use this configuration and use simtools.

Return to us ... On the K8055 jumpers SK5 and SK6 should be removed if using external potentiometers with the translator I do not understand if I have to choose whether or not SK5 and SK6?

I will set manually min and max will do another test and then let you know

my sim axes inverted so I have to set 255 min and 0 max?

Edit: I'm confused with the jumpers SK2 and SK3.
Ok SK5 and SK6

Ok SK3 and SK2 represent the pot enable pins , SK5,SK6 is the Card Address on the P8055-1 , I have the old card.
@-kevin- is this different on the newer card. ?

I will also add the option to invert the min max , not added to v1 yet, at least we have it moving motors my first goal, thanks too
@cyberxu , could you please post your findings here too. Great to hear you got Matt to run, more options the better.

Hello eaorobbie,

I tested your beta software, and here is what I found,

1. With pot reading 127 in the Motor 1 Setup area.
2. Power on the sabertooth, if I got it right(cross me fingers) the motor should not rotate as it is disabled.
3. Check Enable Motor 1 - and the DAC used should be 127 at pot position 0 and Direction should read "Stopped"
4. Now by rotating the pot cw the motor should spin ccw
5. Now by rotating the pot ccw the motor should spin cw till the pot is 0 in the real position the and the motor should stop.
6. Now by rotating the pot further ccw the motor should spin cw
it did not spin cw direction......it kept spinning ccw direction

So now I stopped at this stage waiting for advise!!!

Cyberxu

Revision will come shortly, a sabertooth may be coming my way to borrow and test my code so hopefully change my sim over to K8055 and test and refine quickly.
Again thanks for checking it for me.

No difference Rob I did mess with the jumpers

Same thing cyberxu .... the engine runs only in a clockwise direction that is in the max for me but I had no counterclockwise axes reversed and I put them affixed.

Then I have another question: I can not put the min less than my 127 starts at 140 min then put screenshot:

MIN


MAX


Something wrong?


The nice thing is if you accidentally close the application the engines are still perhaps because the DLL remains loaded K8055?

Ok found my error , logical error in maths for the DAC control. My bad, but not giving up on this.
Have done a quick vid on the control , does this look right now.



Sorry haven't done the axis inverting yet will test later tonight and add that will help if people wire the pot backwards. Thanks for the suggestion.

Updated Ver. have changed it aswell in the first post too.

@-kevin-
Ok had time to look at inversion of the pot. Now seems to be correct, only testing will tell. Thanks in advance

Ok if you wish to invert the pot, set the Max for the pot above 127 and the Min below 127, now simply check the invert pot, you will notice the scaled position is inverted, just need a confirmation I have the motors turning the right directions. Then this will be added into the main program.

Cheer Robbie.

Ps new test app ready. First Post.

I do not know if the video you will understand why I write.
I think I have problems with knobs on my sim I have to replace them probably took too many shots .....

By moving the lever to the left of the DAC motor turns counterclockwise
Selecting invert the pot and moving the lever always left the motor rotates counterclockwise.

By moving the lever to the right of the DAC engine rotates clockwise in both cases.



I noticed that the motor moves slowly ... what can it be?

Ok @-kevin- so that's the inverted one, look like I need to work a lot more on that one. Was a quick fix , needs more.
Did you get a chance to look at the other , non inverted (2). ?

Speed, I have not ramped that up yet will be a slider for user to decide, eventually, without a sabertooth here, and I have never used a sabertooth myself, Im learning too. Ok I will try and update the invert one tomorrow, pretty sure what needs to change.

Sorry taking a little while for me to nut out. Jrks made my brain go mushy I think, lol.

p.s If you just close app , yes I have set on close for the DAC to be reset to 127 so the motors should stay in a stopped position. Safety on shutting down app accidently. Nice find , forgot to mention that.

@eaorobbie PM

At last... Sorry for my English but I write with googletraslate. You don't know how much I was hoping that someone put up a software for use with the K8055N simtools!!!!
Thanks to all those who are collaborating on the project. I'm not at your level but if I can be useful, I will try to do my part. @ Eaorobbie: waiting for the sabertoot you've decided to check with a tester the outputs of K8055N??? In practice, the analog output of the K8055N goes from ' 0 ' to ' 5 '. a 2.5 v the motor is at standstill, at 0 v maximum speed in a line, to 5 maximum speed v on the other. Then with a meter attached to the output you can already get a velleman idea how to turn the engine.


Finalmente ... Scusate il mio inglese ma scrivo con googletraslate. Non sapete quanto speravo che qualcuno mettesse a punto un software per usare simtools con la K8055N !!!!
Grazie a tutti quelli che stanno collaborando al progetto. Io non sono al vostro livello ma se posso essere utile cercherò di fare la mia parte.
@ Eaorobbie: In attesa che ti arrivi la sabertoot hai pensato di verificare con un tester le uscite della K8055N??? In pratica l' uscita analogica della K8055N va da "0" a "5" Volt. a 2,5 v il motore è fermo, a 0 v massima velocità in un verso, a 5 v massima velocità nell' altro. Quindi con un tester attaccato all' uscita della velleman puoi già farti un idea di come girerà il motore.