I am helping some high school students in building an ROV for competition. Currently they use a series of on/off switches to drive the ROV at a distance of 15 meters with a hugh umbilical cord. I thought I would look into some sort of serial connection control and eliminate the needless amount of wires.
Does the Pololu serial-8 controller connect to 1 or more dual serial motor controllers? Do I have to hook each by way of the DB9 connector, or is there a way to patch them together? We would also like to control the ROV wiith a joystick. Anyone got VB code for joystick control of a motor?
Hello,
You can connect several servo controllers and motor controllers on one serial line, and you don’t have to use the DB9 connector if that’s too big. The only limitation to keep in mind is how quickly you will want to update the various motors. The protocol will allow for around 400 commands per second, so if you want all of your motors updated 25 times per second, you shouldn’t have more than 16 devices controlled off of one serial line.
Unfortunately, we do not have any VB code for joystick control of a motor; please let us know if you find something good.
- Candice