Hi everyone!
I have a rc combat wing which has 2 elevons (2 digital SERVOS), this I would like to control with a digital or analog gimbal depending what is best (https://www.frsky-rc.com/product/mc12p/) and do the mixing through an Arduino board. All the connections to the wing - arduino - gimbal will be wired (not wireless) Wired is a must otherwise I would just get an RX - receiver!
tasks will be:
elevon mixing (of 2 servos.. in future maybe up to 4)
trims for the elevon
exponential movement of the control gimbal
probably more tasks in the future
kindly advise what and which boards I need, I prefer to make the built overkill, professional and as safe as possible (doesn't have to be cheap)
at the moment im considering:
Arduino Mega 2560 Rev3
Arduino Due
Portenta H7
would I also need a *Pololu Maestro servo controller or will the above do the job themselves
the combat wing will be tested in a wind tunnel so we want the setup to be resilient and powerful enough to not cause any problems and be used for more complicated setups in the future.
Instead of a 2.4ghz wireless connection as used usually with an rx tx, we want all the conections from and to the board and periferals (even to the wing) to be via cable
since you don't read the entire post of course you wouldn't get it!! the wing will be testet in a wind tunnel !! anyways there is no reason for you to write or respond here, I don't care for your opinion or any comment
Well then, how many meters cable do you want to use? 20? which protocol? CAN? UDP? Might it be that the experience necessary to implement it using a custom built wired solution is a bit more than you are up to?
@zwieblum the cable will be around 2-3 meters long,
yes my experience to implement this is definitely not enough!! you are right!!
Arduino PWM Output: Use the PWM pins on the Arduino board (such as pins 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 on the Arduino Mega 2560) to output control signals for your servos.
Servo Connection: Connect the signal wire of each servo to one of the PWM pins on the Arduino. Make sure to connect the servo's power and ground wires to the appropriate voltage and ground pins on the Arduino or an external power supply.
Code: Write Arduino code to control the servos based on your input (e.g., joystick input from the FrSky MC12P). You can implement features like elevon mixing, trims, and exponential movement directly in your Arduino sketch.
By using a simple wired connection with PWM signals, you can achieve precise control over your servos without the added complexity of communication protocols like CAN. This approach should be sufficient for controlling servos in your RC combat wing project and can easily be expanded for future tasks if needed.
Where did you get this information from? (chatGPT?)
You can use other pins for the servo, the servo library does not rely on the PWM capability of those pins.
So outputs 2, 4, 7, 8 etc can also be used.
Hi @TomGeorge ,
yes correct, since I am a total beginner in this area and don't get much advice I sometimes check stuff with ChatGPT.
Good to know! since I will only be using 2 digital servos I just want to make sure it will work as a setup and that I have enough output controls for 2 maybe 4 servos in the near future.
What is your plan for reading the joystick gimbals that aren't part of an RC transmitter? Am I understanding correctly? My understanding is that you want to read gimbals as devices unto themselves, ie supplying the voltage externally and reading the raw stick signal (aileron and elevator, one stick) into an Arduino, converting that into PWM values for the jet in a wired configuration?
I ask because afaik, the gimbal is a combination of two potentiometers, which the transmitter itself converts into a signal for the receiver that passes a PWM signal to the servos.
You're adding a layer of complexity to the project bypassing (and essentially duplicating what the transmitter already does) but don't think I'm knocking your project.
I am curious though, if you don't mind, why can't or won't you use an RC Tx/Rx? I'm genuinely intrigued as you apparently have access to a wind tunnel. Is it that the traditional RC won't work, or is it just for your own interest?
hi @hallowed31
the easiest way to control the wing is of course use an RC transmitter and receiver (which I own already) but because of the space we could only position them 1.8 meters away from each other and since they would be so close to each other this is a problem and we get some disconnections also some other signals as bluetooth etc.. cause issues.
after seeing that people built their own arduino rx & tx we want to do the same just via cable.
