About 6 Months ago my brother-in-law asked me if I could help with a problem he had. He builds miniature fairground rides and wanted to make them a bit more realistic by having them slow down and speed up like the real ones. As you do, I said of course I would help thinking this would be a prefect opportunity to use my newly acquired raspberry pi. After an initial inspection of the rides, I set to work. It turned out to be quit a challenge in the end as I was having difficulties with the PWM control for more than 1 motor using the PI direct.
Enter the Picoborgrev, the board was just what I had been looking for. Multi motor control on a single board with PWM great. The only draw back (i didn't know Python) the code. After a quick course in python coding , I set up a test rigg and started work on the problem.
The setup so far consists of a home built power supply, this takes 240v and gives access to a range of DC voltages from 9 to 12v. From this we feed a 30v to 5v usb driver (this powers the Pi) and 2 Picobogrev boards.
The rides consist of a Cakewalk, FerrisWheel, Swing Boats, and a carousel. The requirement was to have the cake walk vary in speed but never stop, the other rides had to start, ramp up ,run for a period of time and the n ramp down to stop. All of this had to appear random .
The code is attached and uses threads to achieve the required results.
It is still a work in progress, and after testing this weekend, still has a few bugs which I will be ironing out over the next week or so.
Will Keep you posted
One of the issues I had was when I used the keyboard interrupt the rides did not always stop. This turned out to be a python threading issue . I have modified the code so that to checks a global variable and shuts down in a more civil manner. I will be fitting an emergency stop using the piborgs onboard capabilities , so we can stop rides should anything go wrong.
I'm building a robot and went with the PiBorg Reverse for the motor control. It was extremely easy to integrate with the serial port. https://youtu.be/hQqpGBI5J-I
After 5 long years I can at last show you my ROV. The body is brushed aluminium composite sheet. 4 submersable bilge pumps move it up and down , forward and reverse turning in any direction. The water tight cylinder is a 110mm sewerage pipe and fittings. I have epoxied and resined a clear dome and cable glands into the end caps.
The ROV is controlled using a Raspberry Pi 3 and 2 picoborg Reverse motor controllers. video is supplied from a usb camera using motion software.
I have extensivly modified the diddy web code . I mainly use the joystick example.
The ROV is connected to my laptop via CAT5 ethernet cable. I use a Joy2Key which converts movements on my joystick to the key presses.
The motors are powered from a lithiun ion battery pack. The Raspberry pi is powered via a usb hub which in turn is powered via the etheret cable (I only need 2 twisted pairs for data which leaves 2more pairs for voltage) 18v is sent down the cable and dropped down to 5v to power the hub.
I will post more info if required.
Many thanks to all that have helped with modifyig the code over the years. I have learnt so much.
popeyesfx
Mon, 07/28/2014 - 20:09
Permalink
Miniature FairGround Rides
About 6 Months ago my brother-in-law asked me if I could help with a problem he had. He builds miniature fairground rides and wanted to make them a bit more realistic by having them slow down and speed up like the real ones. As you do, I said of course I would help thinking this would be a prefect opportunity to use my newly acquired raspberry pi. After an initial inspection of the rides, I set to work. It turned out to be quit a challenge in the end as I was having difficulties with the PWM control for more than 1 motor using the PI direct.
Enter the Picoborgrev, the board was just what I had been looking for. Multi motor control on a single board with PWM great. The only draw back (i didn't know Python) the code. After a quick course in python coding , I set up a test rigg and started work on the problem.
The setup so far consists of a home built power supply, this takes 240v and gives access to a range of DC voltages from 9 to 12v. From this we feed a 30v to 5v usb driver (this powers the Pi) and 2 Picobogrev boards.
The rides consist of a Cakewalk, FerrisWheel, Swing Boats, and a carousel. The requirement was to have the cake walk vary in speed but never stop, the other rides had to start, ramp up ,run for a period of time and the n ramp down to stop. All of this had to appear random .
The code is attached and uses threads to achieve the required results.
It is still a work in progress, and after testing this weekend, still has a few bugs which I will be ironing out over the next week or so.
Will Keep you posted
popeyesfx
Sat, 08/30/2014 - 12:36
Permalink
Updated Python Code
One of the issues I had was when I used the keyboard interrupt the rides did not always stop. This turned out to be a python threading issue . I have modified the code so that to checks a global variable and shuts down in a more civil manner. I will be fitting an emergency stop using the piborgs onboard capabilities , so we can stop rides should anything go wrong.
ducttape36
Mon, 06/29/2015 - 19:51
Permalink
Autonomous Robot with Kinect and Piborg
I'm building a robot and went with the PiBorg Reverse for the motor control. It was extremely easy to integrate with the serial port. https://youtu.be/hQqpGBI5J-I
clankerr02
Wed, 05/17/2023 - 16:29
Permalink
ROV (Remotely Operated Underwater Vhicle)
After 5 long years I can at last show you my ROV. The body is brushed aluminium composite sheet. 4 submersable bilge pumps move it up and down , forward and reverse turning in any direction. The water tight cylinder is a 110mm sewerage pipe and fittings. I have epoxied and resined a clear dome and cable glands into the end caps.
The ROV is controlled using a Raspberry Pi 3 and 2 picoborg Reverse motor controllers. video is supplied from a usb camera using motion software.
I have extensivly modified the diddy web code . I mainly use the joystick example.
The ROV is connected to my laptop via CAT5 ethernet cable. I use a Joy2Key which converts movements on my joystick to the key presses.
The motors are powered from a lithiun ion battery pack. The Raspberry pi is powered via a usb hub which in turn is powered via the etheret cable (I only need 2 twisted pairs for data which leaves 2more pairs for voltage) 18v is sent down the cable and dropped down to 5v to power the hub.
I will post more info if required.
Many thanks to all that have helped with modifyig the code over the years. I have learnt so much.