pic: PS2 Driven Robot

[[527]phil]

The micro controller that I'm using for my robo one has 9 pins for connecting a playstation controller. I hope to eventually incorporate a wireless controller so it'll be like rockem sockem robots, only these robots cost a lot more.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

I doubt you will get the rumble feature working. I don't know all the mechanics but the chances are they use a buzzer. And since a buzzer is a motor the RC should not output enough power for it to run. Nice work though. I'm looking at making custom controls this year and i like to see success.

From what I saw when I ripped apart an old controller of mine, they're just little DC motors with... weight kinda things on them that when they spin throw the controller off balance, making it rumble.

[mechanicalbrain]

Originally Posted by Mike

From what I saw when I ripped apart an old controller of mine, they're just little DC motors with... weight kinda things on them that when they spin throw the controller off balance, making it rumble.

Exactly thats what buzzers essentially are and I'm thinking you wont get the RC to power it. There is a rule on what you can connect i think that lighted switches is a NoNo also. I use a double switch and power the lights on a battery to get around the rule without breaking it. I don't think you can do anything like that with the buzzer. However if you DO get it working give me a mail and some instructions because I would love to incorporate a buzzer into our controls.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

I doubt you will get the rumble feature working. I don't know all the mechanics but the chances are they use a buzzer. And since a buzzer is a motor the RC should not output enough power for it to run.

The "rumble" in a videogame controller isn't a buzzer. It's basically the same thing as the "vibrate" in a cell phone or pager: a tiny little motor with an off-center weight. The LED drivers on the OI are limited to 10 milliamps, and might be capable of running a typical 40ma pager motor if they were connected together.

[Don Wright]

Very nice job.

Please don't take my question as any kind of attack or jab at your accomplishment. I think what you have done is awesome. But, is it legal? I thought I remember there being a rule of some sort not allowing any kind of computer or processor between the driver and the RC. With the PIC in-line, would this violate a rule?

Just curious. If it doesn't, and if somebody could make a nice, semi-universal PS2 or USB to digipots and switch adapter, it would open up the world of cool controllers to teams.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Don Wright

Very nice job.

Please don't take my question as any kind of attack or jab at your accomplishment. I think what you have done is awesome. But, is it legal? I thought I remember there being a rule of some sort not allowing any kind of computer or processor between the driver and the RC. With the PIC in-line, would this violate a rule?

Just curious. If it doesn't, and if somebody could make a nice, semi-universal PS2 or USB to digipots and switch adapter, it would open up the world of cool controllers to teams.

Well, good question. Here's the rule.

2005 FIRST Robotics Competition Manual: Section 5 – The Robot rev A Page 18 of 29
5.3.8 Operator Interface Rules

<R69> All equipment connected to the Joystick Ports of the Operator Interface must be powered solely through the power available through the port. External power sources of any type are not permitted on any
equipment connected to the Joystick Ports. Portable computing devices may not be connected to Joystick input ports on the Operator Interface.

I have to admit, even I forgot about the part about portable computing devices connected to the joystick ports.

This then brings about the question of what exactly they meant by the rule. Did they mean to explicitly ban everything but pots and switches and the things they're housed in, or was the rule intended to block things like PDAs and laptops (which the average guy on the street would consider a portable computing device)?

In any event, nice work.

[Rickertsen2]

Where did you get a mating connector for the controller. An extension cable?

[Bcahn836]

May be these can help?
Link 1
Link 2

[Rickertsen2]

PS2 controllers use a fairly simple synchronous serial protocol.
here is some info on the PS1 interface:http://www.gamesx.com/controldata/psxcont/psxcont.htm

from what i understand the PS2 controllers are the same electrically with only very minor changes in the protocol.

There was a pretty good article in the June 2003 Nuts and Volts on using PS controllers

[Rohan_DHS]

LOL, nice seal of approval, Billfred

[Not2B]

Originally Posted by Don Wright

Very nice job.

Please don't take my question as any kind of attack or jab at your accomplishment. I think what you have done is awesome. But, is it legal?

Yeah - me and another mentor wondered the same thing. In fact, from what I can tell (being a mechanical kind of guy anyway), it's not legal. So it went a little something like this (paraphrased for humor of course...)

Mentors: Hey, I don't think that's legal.
Students: But it's gonna be cool
Mentors: Really - look at rule R69
Students: But it might change... we should ask FIRST
Mentors: Don't bet on it
Students: Yeah... it's gonna be cool... we should do it
Mentors: Oh fine - but we are still going to do a regular control for next year
Students: YEAH - lets do it
Mentors: I have no idea how or if that's going to work
Students: Look - it's working
Mentors: Holy ^#&*@#* - How'd ya do that?

So... they went on their merry way.
- They didn't have a programmer for the pic
-- So they made their own
- They didn't have software to download the program into the pic
-- So they wrote their own
- The robot was not around, going to demos
-- They followed the robot to a weekend demo, and worked out the bugs in the middle of a festival (Thanks 470).

[Adam Richards]

Originally Posted by Not2B

Yeah - me and another mentor wondered the same thing. In fact, from what I can tell (being a mechanical kind of guy anyway), it's not legal. So it went a little something like this (paraphrased for humor of course...)

I can see your team either getting the device banned or getting an Innovation in Control award every regional you stop at...

[Mr. Lim]

Loving this thread!

1) Most of the veteran teams won't touch the right-hand only beige joysticks that have been included in the kit for the past few years. The problems with broken axes, poor range, inconsistent centering, etc etc are well known.

2) Veteran teams lucky enough to stockpile those CH flightsticks from many years ago love them. They're getting extremely rare now, and I think most of us realize aren't may seasons left in them.

3) What would it take to get to IFI to integrate one of your PS2 dongles right into the OI next year? or the year after? Would you be willing to give up the dongle design in the spirit of improving FIRST as a whole?

[Joe J.]

Yeah they did an awsome job. It worked right the first time we tried it, only needed minor tweaking

[jakep]

Hey everyone, I am one of the three students that worked on the PS2 adapter.

We used a 16f688 PIC chip and two dual pot digital potentiometers from Maxim. The device currently breaks the rules of official competition because it uses an external power source (9 volt battery). We are working on drawing power from the OI using the LED driver pins, since the circuit only draws around 6 miliamps of current. Since we got the beta working this weekend, we are now taking steps to finalize the design. We are working on soldering it together more permanently, so that you won't have to worry about wires, etc. coming loose on our messy breadboard. Once it's put together, we will be adding just a few more things, such as the drawing OI power thing. Once that's done, we will be posting up our PIC source code and schematics so other teams can build this device for themselves. It uses a conventional PS2 controller, any analog one will do, and it fully controls all the functions of our robot. (We used to use 3 joysticks for this.) It actually drives better this way because you can coordinate your actions more precisely without a second driver. (Sorry copilots )

The outputs are the 4 analog ones directly to the OI. Analog input 1/2 are the tank drive for the main robot. While 3/4 each send 4 digital inputs. This was done because we didn't have enough pins to use, so we had send multiple digital signals over analog.

Even if we won't get to use it in competition, it was still a fun project to work on, and we all learned a lot about PIC programming (we built our own programmer since we were on a budget) and electronics in general (Our software team did most of the electronics o_O).


BTW: The PS2 controller in the picture is not modified in any way, the wires are sticking out because it's a used controller. (Which is also why the trim is messed up and the robot tends to go backwards when not touching the sticks at times)