nCode's Blog

My first CNC project will likely be my nCode logo, I generated the g-code and made a dry run video

First video of the CNC machine in action!
More to come:)

Most of the parts are in, time to build a machine.

The machine itself is a CNC Mini Milling Machine Kit from www.modularcnc.com, the machining and cutting quality of the various parts was done in a minutiously with very thin margins and the end result is sturdy and very well built for a machine this small and at this price. I would recommend it for anyone who want to get into CNC. There is however no step by step instructions on how to assemble the machine and that is ok and not really required since detailed schematics of the linear slides and motor mount is provided and the rest is common sense. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the diagrams, parts and pictures before starting assembly.

The step motors, drivers, power supply, parallel breakout board, emergency shutdown button and various other electronic parts that you can see in the pictures have been purchased from ebay or DIY made.

nCNC-Parts

A picture gallery of parts used for the nCNC project.

23 Photos

nCNC-Assembly-Machine

A picture gallery of the assembly process of the machine.

59 Photos

 

First video of the CNC machine in action for a travel and Axis test!

nCode Logo Dry Run

I will be adding even more pictures and videos later on, stay tuned.

Good afternoon!

Project ARCHA stands for Automated Remote Controlled Helicopter Assistant

The goal is to facilitate and improve control of an helicopter (E-Sky Honey Bee CP2) by adding a micro controller and various sensors to have it flyable by an inexperienced pilot.

*Please note that RC Helicopters can be dangerous, you could very well cut yourself, get hurt, injured, etc. You really should try to understand the source codes and schematics before trying to reproduce anything you will find in this project*

Project Outline

• Phase 1
  • Select a micro controller
    • Arduino Mini Microcontroller Module
      • Has 6 x ~490 Hz PWM pins
      • 14 digital IO
      • 6 analog Input (10 bit dac)
      • more details
  • Build powersupply for the micro controller, servos and additional electronics
    • 2x 7805 will provide 5volts 2x 2 servo motors
    • 1x 7805 will provide 5volts to the controller, sensors, wireless receiver, etc
    • a 3.3volt regulator will power the dual axis gyro + 3 axis accelerometer IMU
    • The DC motors will be powered directly by the LiPo battery
  • Hack a PPM signal from a 6 Channel RC Receiver
    • 6 Channel 72 mhz SunUP SU/R-6FM bought from ebay
  • Read and interpret the PPM signal using the controller
  • Build a battery voltage meter using a voltage divider
    • It is not safe to drain a Li-Po battery too much… according to various posts on rcgroups.com and heliguy.com usually around 10-10.1v is a good time to recharge it
  • Build a main rotor and tail rotor dc motor pwm controller
  • Select a servo controller
    • external servo controller will reduce stress on the microcontroller
    • will use Pololu Micro Servo Controller
  • Build algorithm to control the servo motors and dc motors from the ppm signal
  • Interface MLX90609 gyro with the arduino, will be used as the tail gyroscope
  • *The helicopter should be flyable at this point*
• Phase 2
  • Interface the Sparkfun 5DOF IMU with the Arduino via a MCP3208 12bit ADC
  • Modify algorithm to calibrate and take into account the gyro’s and accelerometer’s feedback to stabilize the helicopter in flight
  • Tune the Kalman Filtering in order to get a clear pan/tilt measure from the 3 gyro + 3 accelerometers cluster (6 degrees of freedom)
• Phase 3
  • Mount and connect a memory card that will be used for flight data storage
• Phase 4
  • Mount and connect a gps module
  • Modify algorithm to save the gps data in the memory card
• Phase 5
  • Modify algorithm so the helicopter can follow pre-programmed gps waypoints

Work Progress

• Remote Control – E-Sky EK2-0406A Mode 2 (Left Throttle)
• Voltage Divider / Battery Meter Circuit
• Receiver PPM hack – 6 Channel 72 mhz SunUP SU/R-6FM
• Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller Problem/Bug with the Arduino
• UTC LP2950 Voltage Regulator Pinout
• Prototype: Completed
• Interactive View of the Prototype Board (updated september 4th)
• Firmware Version 1.0 Alpha
• PROBLEM! During testing I found out that my ground and +5v is getting really strong interference from the 72mhz ESky controller I’m using, I will test the following:
  • Adding extra ceramic capacitors
  • Wrapping the main circuit board with a Faraday cage
• After experiencing with capacitors and various noise filtering solution I am still having the noise problem that cause a huge fluctuation in my 5volt signals. I will post in a few days/weeks a solution involving 2x XBee Pro 60mW 2.4ghz 1miles range modules link to XBee Pro Manual.
  • One will be connected on an arduino connected to the remote control’s trainer port.
  • The second xbee will be mounted on the helicopter and connected to IO pins 0 and 1 of the arduino mini.
  • This will give us bi-directional communication between the remote control and the helicopter, an lcd display will be mounted on the remote to display feedback and status from the helicopter.
• Currently waiting for 5dof accelerometer + gyro imu from sparkfun so I can finish the helicopter part, when this is finished I will work on the controller part with the xbee pro modules, mounted LCD screen and keypad connected to the E-Sky RC Helicopter Controller.
• First video of the prototype with the recently added 5dof module here.

Picture of the prototype board mounted on the Honey Bee CP2 RC Helicopter: (click to enlarge)

Revised on October 16th at 08:20 AM by Marc Vieira Cardinal