controller, motor, battery, IR conundrum

[finneykris]

hi,

i am currently making a gearbox that has an electronic clutch and it has 6 micro motors that are powered by one PF battery box that holds 6 AA batterys, i am hoping to use the NXT as a remote since it cant be put in the car so i was thinking of controlling packets from a single beam channel using the NXT and a TX then having a RX or RX's in the car which is powered from the battery.

i don't know how i can get the beam to go to a desired RX though without using a second controller on board.

there is 6 motors and two might be getting used in the future., id just get a single channel TX and a NXT brick. or no IR sensor since the RCX has built in IR

i know some of these sensors have onboard flash ram but i don't know if that helps or not.

i also don't want to use any RX that has a channel switch. having a switch on the TX for some reason is ok because its a controller (aka micro controller, NXT) and a remote control (AKA buttons and IR diode.

[mattallen37]

I don't know if I really understand what you want. Do you want a way for the NXT to RC some motors? You should consider using PF IR stuff. The PF IR Receiver is a really nifty little device, and only costs $15. To control it with the NXT, you will need a HT IR Link (or similar device). Each PF IR Receiver has two channels, and there are four protocols, so you can have up to 8 motors controlled independently.

[finneykris]

i want to be able to have each setting stored on the NXT as a program

each program represents a speed/gear, there is 6 motors on the gearbox and when you load a program and run it , it should send out an IR beam

there is an address followed by command such as

MOTOR1 STOP // STOP is an integer for 'SPEED 0'
MOTOR2 SPEED 100
ALL STOP // 'ALL' in an integer for 'MOTOR 1, 'MOTOR2', 'MOTOR3', 'MOTOR4', 'MOTOR5', 'MOTOR6' and STOP is an integer for 'SPEED 0'

two or more motors can not technically be controlled at the same time but the program will control each one as the commands are processed and it should not give a delay between commands.

if the ' ALL STOP command is read then it should stop each motor in that order

the PF IR RX has a switch which changes channel, i don't want to reach the car to do this, and i also don't want to because it wont enable the gearbox to work since there is such a delay between motors activating, the PF IR TX has a switch unfortunately.

also i cant have any switches (not that i think there would be any on a single channel TX) because that also is impractical.

the left and right buttons on the NXT make the car go backwards or forwards (there is no reverse gear or clutch pedal pedal

the middle button of the NXT is the button to change up a speed.gear and the bottom middle button changes down a speed.

if i need to quit the program then i will wither get a button combination so when you press them it quits, or i can just unplug the TX and the program will get interrupted by an error message and hopefully quit it.

if i cant do that then i can use the original proposal of having 6 programs on the NXT, and one for each gear.

i think having one program will be better.

[mattallen37]

I really don't understand what you want. Can you post a picture of the robot?

[bullestock]

MOTOR1 STOP // STOP is an integer for 'SPEED 0'

I think you mean 'alias', not integer.

[h-g-t]

If there is enough space, would you not be better putting the NXT on the robot in place of the battery box? That way you can either program the brick to do what you want or control it remotely using Bluetooth.

Apart from anything else, IR communication requires a clear line of sight and the transmitter & receiver must be pointing at each other - difficult to guarantee with a moving robot.

[finneykris]

depending on the amount of Lumens the beam has, it will reflect off surfaces for a longer before debris deadens the beam, therefore it will be weaker and wont deflect to the IR receiver.

[mattallen37]

depending on the amount of Lumens the beam has, it will reflect off surfaces for a longer before debris deadens the beam, therefore it will be weaker and wont deflect to the IR receiver.

The HT IR Link has extremely poor Tx range. To make sure you get a good signal, you should use it within 10cm or so (think of it as a wired connection, that doesn't quite need to make contact).