Made some tweaks to the AX-12A robot arm. First, was swapping out the CM-700 for a OpenCM9.04c controller board. This allow programming through the Arduino IDE. Next a 16×2 LCD display was added to provide some information of the arm in operation. Finally a Wii nunchuck as add to control the arm.
With the Arduino IDE at hand, the x,y,z position was calculated, ala forward kinematics. Using this information a basic boundary condition was established blocking an movement that would result in the head going past the base platform.
The display provided the x,y coordinates from the nunchuck joystick and the status of the two buttons, z and c. On the second line the x,y,z position of head is displayed along with the active motor. +/o in the final position indicates whether or not the boundary condition has been exceed.
The base motor is always on and controlled by the x movement of the joystick. The c-button on the nunchuck is used to cycle through the active motor for the joystick’s y-axis. Movement is enabled by holding the z-button.
Overall the control is pretty glitchy with the arm tending to over rotate or have periods where it is unresponsive even though the joystick movement is detected. More work is clearly needed.
Code and parts list available on request.
Related Posts
