RoboSavvy Forum

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2011-03-30T18:56:03+01:00

Has anyone tried this with CM-510?
I'm getting some gibberish characters and Bad Command at the end when I execute the controls (by clicking the buttons I mean).

Statistics: Posted by haratron — Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:56 pm

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2011-03-16T10:20:57+01:00

every body.. help meee..
iam very interest to this project.

i try to run vanhelsing project..
i have problem with my mscomm

"Can't exit design mode because Control MSComm1 can not be created"

i have installed my VB and my mscomm is work,
but it can't run in excel,,, why???????

(sorry. iam newbie)

Statistics: Posted by harboot — Wed Mar 16, 2011 10:20 am

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2011-01-06T00:39:19+01:00

Can you share that VB CODE with me. I want to control all 18 Ax12 dynamixels with pc using Usb2Dynamixel

Statistics: Posted by MOHIT JINDAL — Thu Jan 06, 2011 12:39 am

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2007-07-10T02:50:46+01:00

Excellent work. You did this in a week of getting your Bioloid! Impressive.

I'm also impressed that it looks that good considering how long the arm is. That's a lot of leverage for those first two poor little servos!

Statistics: Posted by billyzelsnack — Tue Jul 10, 2007 2:50 am

Another plotter

2007-07-10T01:20:43+01:00

Hello everybody

Got my bioloid last friday and after trying couple of the basic robots from the guidebook I wanted to try something different before building the humanoid. So I decided to build a plotter similar of VanHelsings but a using Java as control language.

I builded my plotter with longer arm for better reach, which actually was a bad design decision because longer equals wobblier.

I used manage mode and swr commands to drive the plotter just like VanHelsing.

First I drawed the duck, but drawing rasterized image took quite long and I had no idea howto create those plotting commands from other normal images. I decided to try to draw vector graphics which are defined by drawing paths by default. I hacked Batis svg graphics libraries to my plotter code and was able to draw pictures straight from .svg format images.

Here is a video of the plotter in action.

phpBB [media]

Couple of images:
The quality of the drawings was actually quite bad. The repeatibility of the drawings is still quite good. The butterfly outline is drawed twice and the plotter has done identical jerks and twists on both runs.

Original butterfly image http://www.croczilla.com/svg/samples/butterfly/butterfly.svg

Statistics: Posted by taiowa — Tue Jul 10, 2007 1:20 am

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2007-06-19T22:10:19+01:00

Yes, this is an inspiring thread. I wondered if the repeatability of the servos were good enough for plotting. This makes me want to take a crack at a PCB plotting.

Statistics: Posted by roycepipkins — Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:10 pm

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2007-05-27T15:45:08+01:00

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life. It was posted well before I got my Bioloid and I guess I didn't browse back enough to find it.

Very inspiring.

Statistics: Posted by billyzelsnack — Sun May 27, 2007 3:45 pm

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2007-05-27T09:31:31+01:00

Wow this is amazing!

VanHelsing I want to do something similar to this but to have the image taken from a webcam. I have no clue as how to transform the image to something the arm can plot. Can you help break down the steps of how you did it ( I'm a complete idiot when it come to excel) or point me to reference literature to do this.

Thanks,
Boyz

Statistics: Posted by Boyz — Sun May 27, 2007 9:31 am

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2006-06-11T21:30:00+01:00

Awesome - love the video too

Statistics: Posted by Pev — Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:30 pm

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2006-06-11T18:08:54+01:00

Here the answer to question 1. The VBA code I used is in the following Excel file:

http://robosavvy.com/Builders/VanHelsing/ax-12%20two%20arm%20plotter.xls

I apologize already for the fact that it is absolutely hobbyist code, full of errors and opportunities for better ways to do certain things. So if everything explodes… I didn’t do it, not my fault, 'll deny everything.

Actually, I would really like to hear it when you see an opportunity to improve it.

When you got it working, here some other pictures in portable greyscalemap (*.pgm) (zipped):
http://robosavvy.com/Builders/VanHelsing/some%20pgm%20files.zip

When you didn’t get it working, this is how it was supposed to look like:
http://robosavvy.com/Builders/VanHelsing/plotting.avi

When also that didn’t work, I maybe should mention that the Avi is a divx with mp3 audio (I always have audio decync when I make a wmv)

Statistics: Posted by VanHelsing — Sun Jun 11, 2006 6:08 pm

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2006-06-07T17:43:32+01:00

VanHelsing,

thank you very much for the useful links!

I went through them (in theory because my bioloid is very far away at present) and think I'll have a very good start in learning com port conversation.

Oh, and sorry for the HTTP 404 ... it worked a week ago.

Thanks as well for the smaller plotter image ... it is linked to the german forum ... and also Pev's short legged hexabot.

Cheers!
barbar

Statistics: Posted by barbar — Wed Jun 07, 2006 5:43 pm

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2006-06-07T10:50:56+01:00

Weekend took a bit longer . Here a more detailed answer on question 2 of barbar. (Q3 Q1 will follow)

I never tried XMComm, and I couldn’t really check it out because I unfortunately get a ‘HTTP 404 ‘ on clicking the link. However, I know that there are more alternatives made for mscomm32.ocx, because MS is very unclear about the license policy (you cant even buy it if you would like to). Still, most users feel that mscomm32 is the most stable of them all.

Here some info on getting it working:

- If you don’t have mscomm32.ocx (search your windows folder, most comps have it) or having trouble licensing it, look at: http://www.yes-tele.com/mscomm.html. They also explain a bit about the confusing licensing policies of MS.

- Summary on how to use mscomm32: http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=6191

- Helpful forum about Excel Com port communication http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=560230&page=1. (For license issues see posts of users: MisterCfromIT on 18 Feb 05 12:06 and GVF on1 Nov 05 17:51)

- To monitor what actually goes trough the com port while communicating with your cm-5 use http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/portmon.shtml (free)

Statistics: Posted by VanHelsing — Wed Jun 07, 2006 10:50 am

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2006-06-03T09:36:04+01:00

Thanks for the compliments!

But, since this weekend is filled with non-robotics related stuff I will have to resort to answering the questions of inaki and barbar in a more proper way until after the weekend (sorry).

Q’s:
1. Especially the code is outstanding in user unfriendliness, so it needs a little touch-up.
2. There’s a registry solution for the license of Mscomm32.ocx, will dig it up. No experience with XMComm. Mscomm32.ocx worked for me after the registry solution.
3. Of course, no problem. ~~Will do ASAP~~ Done.

Statistics: Posted by VanHelsing — Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:36 am

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2006-06-02T17:50:39+01:00

inaki wrote:
One of the good things of Robotis kit is that it can be as well a waiter serving a beer as a plotter drawing a duck !

I agree whole heartedly in fact I think that is the thing about the robotis kit, it really challenges you to think of new designs and applications - hats off to VanHelsing for not only a great design but an unusual concept for a robotics kit.

Statistics: Posted by Pev — Fri Jun 02, 2006 5:50 pm

Control AX-12 with Visual Basic (VBA or Excel)

2006-06-02T17:40:09+01:00

One of the good things of Robotis kit is that it can be as well a waiter serving a beer as a plotter drawing a duck !

Statistics: Posted by inaki — Fri Jun 02, 2006 5:40 pm