Pwm on wipermotor by arduino and pwm shield

vvvv beta question
#1

hi vvvv-people

I am trying to get a carwindow wiper motor running on vvvv by using an arduino uno and this shield: http://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?id=412174

I got the arduino connected on the firmata arduino helppatch, but not getting any movement.

somebody got some knowledge or maybe a patch that works?

thanks,

art

#2

well, :), the shield seems to be highly configurable, so there is little chance a have a patch ready. what you should do is debugging step by step. I would put a simple LED on the pin i want to steer. if the LED dims, then it is the configuration of the board you need to tweak. else it is in your patch.

follow the help patch of the arduino module. afaik it is set up so the led on pin 9 (or 6) dims. note, that with the standard firmata only the actual PWM pins are dimmable. i know there is a custom PWM library for the arduino to also dim other pins, but this is not used in the standard firmata (the module is made for).

best! j

#3

Hi jens!

thanks for the advice! I am gonna work on that!
will let u know how it turns out!

art

#4

Hi Art,

Could you please also tell us more on your motor (Volts and Amps), because usually carwindow motor are consuming more than 2.5 Amps (which is the maximum that your board can handle). So even if all is working well, your motor will not turn…

You can try to replace your motor by a multimeter (in voltmeter mode) and check if the tension is changing when you actually modify the corresponding pwm output through the arduino firmata in v4.

I would suggest to use this board if you want to control a carwindow motor with arduino and vvvv :
http://www.robotpower.com/products/MegaMoto_info.html

#5

hi all

so i tested some stuff…

dimming led on arduino works, but nothing comes through the shield, even when working with a voltmeter (thanks rogerlette for the advice)
(btw, carwiper runs on a 2.25a 6v source, will be fine i think, but i will purchase this other board too, looks quite sturdy!)

so from vvvv, there is a max of 2 pwms I can control? so I would never be able to stear 7 pwm motors… (thats what i want)

is there maybe a arduino patch that communicates with vvv AND dims all the pins? anybody knows of that?

art

#6

Hi artvt

about the pwm , you can use up to 6 pwm per arduino Uno out of the box , or more with other arduinos like mega 14 pwm.

There are also tricks and software based pwm like http://code.google.com/p/rogue-code/wiki/SoftPWMLibraryDocumentation probably worth to try for your aim.

To send the data from vvvv i guess you can use firmata as easier way , or basicmata-arduino-interface or arduinoosc for fastest data signal.

#7

Hi artvt,

Lets do it step by step. Sur ewe will find what’s going wrong.
First you check the arduino : You succeed to dim a led (with the fading example of the arduino IDE I supposed). This means your arduino is working well.

Then you must check the motor shield : Suposing you are using the fading example of arduino IDE, means that you actually fade the pin 9.
Plug your shield onto the arduino, power the shield with an external power supply (+ PWR -). (12V-1Amps for example)
Then connect your voltmeter between the output 3 and 4. You should see a 12V fading output ? Is that working ?

Then about the motor, you say that it’s a car carwindow wiper motor, are you sure you motor run with a 6V, 2.25Amps power supply, did you try that ?
Does you motor look like this ?
http://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/346231232/car_wiper_motor.jpg

For the pwm, as colorsound mention, there is 6pwm output on the arduino, and you can control them with v4 firmata or basicmata example patch.

You say you wanted to control 7 motors with v4. No pb with that. But first you have to tell us if you want to control them on both direction or not ?

#8

dear colorsound and rogerlette

sorry, i’ve been away for a while, but now I am back on this project.
Thank you for posting your tips n tricks, I will now answer your questions…

followed your steps

led is fading

no 12 v output on board

the motor does indeed look like the picture you posted

I agree, lets first see if we can move one motor and later take 7 motors on…

thanks a lot!

art

#9

ow btw

I also have a L298n motordriver lying around here, maybe that works better or also good?

art

#10

Hi artvt,

You reply 7 month later, so I did not saw it sorry :)

Here is my skype : rogerlette
Just add me, we will do the test together, and once we get it works we can post the answer here.