Controlling PWMs through hardware

[Taylor]

[quote=Tristan Lall;887100]A Vex starter kit will have compatible outputs—though you may have to splice wires to get the proper connector gender. /QUOTE]

A lesson we've learned the hard way - before you splice all your PWM cables, simply put some header pins into the female side - instant male-male PWM!

I'm still scratching my head as to why nobody makes Male-Male PWM cables.
With the amount of teams who use VEX controllers at least for prototyping, if not special projects like yours, there should be some sort of market out there.

[Kingofl337]

Just use a FRC Y Cable, it has male ends on both sides.

[Jon236]

Adam,

Can you post your vision code in a thread? I've looked all over the WPI site and can't find it!

[xanarchyx]

hey guys, I myself have been thinking about this for the last year on and off and with a bit of research found the answer.
Like someone from 111 i believe had posted, use a 555. They are exactly right.

After some testing and troubleshooting i got it down.
you need 1 555 that outputs a steady 50Hz signal. That should go to the trigger pin on a second 555. Use the second one to create the pulse 1-2ms with a pot (50-100K) and around a .2 uF cap.

I used a 556 IC, its got 2 555 built into it, this made it smaller and a bit simpler to wire.


Or.... like someone said you could probably use a vex controller although iv heard there's sometimes problems with that.

I guess if your not very comfortable around breadboards, go with the vex controller.

[Luke Pike]

Or you could look into an Arduino. It's a controller that's pretty cheap ($30 or so) and can be programmed through a USB cable. It has an IDE which uses a language which is basically C. It can also output PWM signals, so it could be useful for your case.