Talon Speed Controller

Using Arduino Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
1

Hello everyone. Me and a friend were thinking about building a robot, and I was just wondering if the Talon Speed Controller's would work good with Arduino. We were also wondering about the Victor 888, and the Jaguar controllers.

Link to:
Talon Speed Controller
Jaguar Motor Controller
Victor 888 Motor Controller

2

Or would there be any way of getting a Tetrix DC Motor Controller working with Arduino? I am pretty sure they work with I2C, and reading on the Playground a bit, the Uno R3 has I2C. We have a bunch of the Tetrix motor controllers, so if we could get those working, that would be awesome!

3

I've got a Talon working with my Leonardo using the servo Sweep example. I also tried it with the Jaguar with much success! You may need to calibrate the speed controller but to do that you must write a code which sets the limits for a little over one second each. Here's the calibration loop I used:

void loop()
{
servo.write(180);
delay(1500);
servo.write(0);
delay(1500);
}

This is assuming your servo object is named "servo," of course.

Let me know how this works out.

PS: also, does anyone know how to input something like a USB joystick and read an axis with the arduino?

4

Thanks for confirming that the Talon and the Jaguar controllers work with Arduino. I kind of figured they would, as well as Victors.

5

De nada! I haven't tried a victor yet but I figure with the right calibration, they'd work as well.

6

Arn't these controllers just PWM?

7

Yes, but they're all a special frequency of PWM. Using the default PWM for arduino, analogWrite, the arduino gives out a 50hz PWM signal but the controllers accept something around 150hz. The servos use the same frequency so the libraries work great with the controllers.

8

hey so you said you can just use the servo library. how would you control speeds of a motor using a servo library? how does that work?