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Pan/Tilt -- get started?

Pixy Hardware
#1

Hello all,

I’ve got the pixy assembled and can see output in PixyMon … but can’t get the Pan/tilt to work … no movement at all. It’s tracking my object certainly. Feels like I’m missing something obvious.

thanks in advance for any troubleshooting advice.

AK

#2

Thanks Dan. I’m pumped to get this working. really exciting.

  1. – Done, but doesn’t solve it. I get the black screen with my object outlined in white – showing in the PixyMon window beautifully
  2. i hear a faint whine from it when I put my ear close, but not much noise. I can move it with minimal resistance, but notice that it resets to the default position after I do (pan to the right manually, let go, and it pans back… not sure if it is powered or just some kind of recoil)
  3. so I guess this is it – will try a new USB cord absent any other bright ideas.

AK

#3

Thanks Dan for the tips!

Hmm…

Let’s try to debug the servos. Do this—

Run PixyMon and hit the stop button (upper left corner of PixyMon)

In the command window type this:
rcs_setPos 0 1000
rcs_setPos 0 0
rcs_setPos 1 1000
rcs_setPos 1 0

This should exercise the pan servo first then the tilt servo.

Let me know what you find!

#4

thank you both for your input on this - much appreciated.

I tried the manual approach described in the previous response and I can hear a buzzing from my servos, but no twitching or moving.

a few other facts (putting here in case others need to debug similar situations).

  • have tried 2 USB cables. the latest is 3.5 feet long, so possibly a contributor to the problem (but I don’t think so)
  • it feels a little underpowered – if I lift it off the table and turn the base, it will SLOWLY reset back to it’s default Pan position.
  • I tried powering directly from the wall (USB cable to my 5v cell phone adapter) and had no improvement in the pan/tilt. Of course then I’m not connected to my laptop and so it’s harder to debug.
  • the video all works great by the way – outputting fine, can assign signatures, tracks well when in pan/tilt demo. So – I assume the board is perfectly OK

Is there a way to see the output of the pan/tilt in the debug window?
Did I miss a step of updating firmware?

thank you again!

ak

#5

Hi Andrew,
If the rcs_setPos commands didn’t result in the servos moving, that tells us that for some reason it’s a servo related issue. (BTW you hit STOP in Pixymon, etc before typing these in, yes? just checking!)

I suspect it’s a power issue if BOTH servos aren’t working. (It would be unlikely that both servos are defective.) Try this— try unplugging 1 of the servos and perform the rcs_setPos commands. If still no servo movement, try switching the servos-- plug in the other, unplug the one that was plugged in) and try the rcs_setPos commands again. I suspect one of the servos is defective and grabbing too much power.

thanks!

#6

Rich - thank you! got it working.

it’s a little hard to pinpoint exactly what the problem was. I unhooked the tilt arm and the pan motor worked fine. I then reattached the tilt arm and it worked in both directions.

I had a little trouble with the mounting brackets – lower left side (for the tilt) is hard to get sufficiently tight. it sometimes would be wrested out of place – feels a little too lightweight.

I’m also have the trouble mentioned elsewhere about the heft of the base - insufficient to keep the panning from jumping around a bit. But - -solved by holding in place.

so - all is well - I’m off and running.

the rcs_setPos x y commands were a big help. did I miss a glossary of available command line directions?

thanks again – really exciting to play with this.

AK