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Unread 11-03-2008, 22:33
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RyanN
AKA: Ryan Nazaretian
FRC #4901 (Garnet Squadron)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Rookie Year: 2005
Location: Columbia, SC
Posts: 1,126
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HM55B Digital Compass - How do I program the controller to read it?

Here's the story:
It's Sunday before the ship date, and I'm out in the shop trying to get our gear tooth sensors to work, yet the robot had a tendency to veer left and attempt to crash into the virtual lane divider which composed of some tables. I'm very certain the code for the gear tooth sensors work, but one side drags a little more due to some meshing issues in the gears. I'm sure that both gear tooth sensors work, and these are not those provided in the kit.
So to sum that up, 2 days before ship, and autonomous doesn't work at all.

In week 2, I did some research on digital compasses, and found the Parallax HM55B. So after waiting 4 more weeks, I decided to buy it and try it out. Well... it finally came in last week, and I took it home and played with it on a BOE-bot, and it worked great. Very accurate, and I was able to drive the BOE-bot down our 20' hall way in my house without it getting off course at all. Of course, the BOE-bot uses PBASIC, and our IFI controller is C. I did some research around the internet for source code for the HM55B, and was able to come up with a few sources, but I do not understand how they work or how to implement them into our system.

Right now I have Kevin's 3.0 code installed on our controller. The compass works through the TTTL port on our controller. I also believe I understand how to wire the compass in... I just need help on the programming side. I'm a 1st year programmer, and have never been introduced into serial communications or how Kevin's code can be used to communicate with the compass.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
RyanN
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Garnet Squadron
FRC 4901
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@rnazaretian

Previous mentor and student from Team Fusion, FRC 364