Several toasted components later...
The motor controller is actually controlling a motor! Just one, so far; I haven't installed the FETs and high-side drivers for the second one (for that matter, portions of the firmware still need filling in for the second motor).
Swinging the joystick rapidly from full ahead to full astern results in the motor attempting to leap off the table and drag the breadboard along with it. Electrically speaking, though, it appears to be safe.
At idle (joystick on transmitter in neutral position), the motor emits funny little bippity noises, like it's trying to say, "Help! I'm trapped inside this motor!" in Morse code, but I guess that's OK - I don't really want to make the deadband too wide, so some fiddly little pulses are going to sneak through - it's not enough to move the motor.
Actually, before building up the second channel, I think the next priority should be input validation; with the RC transmitter turned off, there's enough noise that the firmware will sometimes wrongly accept a pulse, and run the motor in a wild direction for a while. Guess I should require, say, 10 pulses between 0.8 and 2.2 ms wide before enabling motor control, with the count being reset after too many missed pulses.
Comments