RBE 3001 EDU Board

3001 Board

This board was designed around an AVR 644p microcontroller and uses a number of electrical components that relate to the EDU arm. Many of the onboard chips require a jumper to be set before you can use them. Make sure you read the labels near the components and use it to activate the: encoders, current sensors, DAC, and UART.

Pinout

PDF: Pinouts

The board contains many breakout points that you can probe to debug your issues. The pinouts and all inter-connections can be seen in the above PDF.

Processors

PDF: Main processor

PDF: Coprocessor

There's two different processor on the 3001 board, the main one being the 644P which is what you will be programming. This chip controls everything on the board except for the servos, which are instead done by talking to the coprocessor through UART0 which handles them.

You can program the 644P by using the blue ISP port directly above it (do NOT use the one above the coprocessor).

DAC

PDF: DAC

The DAC is used for controlling the motors on the arm by using the SPI lines on the 644P to send needed commands for setting the voltage levels using PD4 as the SS. You need to connect the power supply at 8.1V as they need more power than the USB connection can supply.

Please note: after sending a command you should toggle your SS line to load the registers and then activate that command. This means after sending your command, you should: deassart SS > assert SS > deassert SS.

Accelerometer

PDF: Accelerometer

PDF: Accelerometer ADC

PDF: Connecting

The accelerometer is not initially attached to the arm and is handed out in a later lab. Communication is done through SPI to talk to an ADC directly connected to the accelerometer and it using an SS line that you pick yourself using one of the spare lines. Most students do not continue to use it after getting the required data, however that is up to the group.

Current Sensor

PDF: Current sensor

The two current sensors read the current draw of one of the motors on the arm. Communication is done with ADC channels 0 and 1 which directly correspond to the current sensor number.

Encoders

PDF: Encoder chip

PDF: Motors with encoder

The encoder chips use SS PC4 (ENC1) and PC5 (ENC0) to read the encoders attached to the motors on the arm. When using the encoders, make sure you initially send the arm to a home position and sample from the potentiometers, then reset the encoder counts.

UART

PDF: UART

The UART is the chip that handles USB communication with your computer. Most of the code for interfacing with it is done for you, you just need to make a few small parts.