CMUcam-driven servos?

[Astronouth7303]

Is it legal to have the CMUcam drive its own servos?

I know it says in the rules that you can't have custom circuits driving outputs, but I don't know if the camera falls into this category or if FIRST has made an exception for this.

Can someone clarify this?

[Mike Betts]

Jamie,

Last year, having the CMUcam control and power the servos was not only allowed, it was the preferred method. As I remember, it was clarified in a FIRST Q&A but never got into the manual.

I would recommend that you post your question on the FIRST Q&A (if and when they ever get it working correctly) and, in the meantime, assume that you can have the servos controlled via the CMUcam.

Regards,

Mike

[devicenull]

It may be allowed, but it's not something you want to do. Switching to tracking mode from scanning for a target resets the servos to their default positions. There was some annoying problem I ran into last year, where the camera couldn't find something and lock on, because the servos were reseting themselves.

[bear24rw]

Originally Posted by devicenull

It may be allowed, but it's not something you want to do. Switching to tracking mode from scanning for a target resets the servos to their default positions. There was some annoying problem I ran into last year, where the camera couldn't find something and lock on, because the servos were reseting themselves.

If you wanted to have the CMUcam drive it's own servos, how would you do that to begin with... what would you define PAN_SERVO and TILT_SERVO as, if they are connected to the CMUcam instead of the RC

#define PAN_SERVO pwm01

If we do run them from the RC, I'm guessing that we are supposed to extend the servo pwm's down to our robot controller also?

Thanks