Hi,
I have one project on my mind and I have couple of question regarding the feasibility.
I’m proud owner of your wixel pair. I was able to connect it with motor controller(Qik) and
servo as well(and couple of analog sensors).
For my new project I need wider range than the wixel can offer. I also need more throughput.
The parts I want to connect: Wixel, Qik motor controller, 4 servos, IMU, GPS, camera.
I think the best way to extend the range is to use some XBee component, wixel is
not capable of processing the video bandwidth so it will be just somehow connected
directly to the Xbee.
The most concerns I have with the communication between wixel and the IMU,GPS.
I know they support ICC communication and there is some library I can use to do it.
The Qik as far as I know is not able to communicate on ICC. About the Xbee I’m not
informed enough to make any assumptions.
Is there possibility Wixel can manage to organize all this(speed, calculation power, pins)
or do I need to involve any other piece of “wise” IC(Arduino etc.) to be able to get it work together?
I do not see anything particularly wrong with your plan. One concern is the more functions you try to make one microcontroller do the harder it will be. It is hard to tell whether you will want a more powerful microcontroller, and that is beyond the scope of our tech support. However, I would be happy to answer specific questions about our products.
You mentioned ICC communication, is that perhaps I2C? If so, you are correct that the Qik does not support I2C.
Thanks, the thing is that with my setup I’m not able to setup one bus for all the components, right? There as well some UARTs and what about SPI, do IMU,GPS(let say types you have in your shop) have another way of communication.
Maybe I can get rid of the Qik. What about driving motor through some output analog pin and transistor? What is the difference between motor controller and driver. I think controller understands serial communication meanwhile the driver is capable of working with PWM modulation. I’m asking because I’d like to switch to brushless motor (if possible) and the drivers for RC brushless motor(ESC) are PWM-driven. Maybe I can use the servo library somehow to control motor drivers(ESC)?
You are correct; You will not be able to control all of those devices from a single I2C bus, as some of them do not support I2C.
You can use a transistor if you only need the motor to turn in one direction.
The differences between a motor driver and a motor controller are described here.
If you decide to switch to a brushless motor and get an appropriate ESC (neither of which we carry), you can control them with a device that generates standard RC servo pulses.
