[PSUBS-MAILIST] PSUBS manipulator

Thu Sep 3 19:52:50 EDT 2020

 Alec, Hank, thanks for all the work.  For those of us that like joysticks, it would be straight forward to use a 4 axis joystick to control these Lenco actuators without a PLC.  There are tons of small inexpensive DC motor controllers like Dimension Engineering Sabertooth Dual 5A Regenerative Motor Driver 

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Dimension Engineering Sabertooth Dual 5A Regenerative Motor Driver

Dual motor controller - 5A 6V-18V Analog, R/C, simplified serial and packetized serial interfaces (TTL) Synch...
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that can take the 0-5VDC analog signal from one of the axis of a joystick and drive the 12 or 24 volt Lenco actuators with a proportional signal.  When the joystick is returned to a neutral position for the axis the the actuator would stop at that position.  Most of these controllers have either linear or non linear response curves that are dip switch selectable that would enable you to get very fine movement around the neutral point (2.5VDC).  They also have a built in regulated 5VDC supply so that it makes it easy to connect directly to a joystick.   Since the controller above is a dual channel, two of these would control the four actuators.  As you say the nice thing abut these Lenco actuators is that you can't do any harm deadheading them so that if the actuator has stroked to it maximum length and the controller is still giving them some voltage, the motor spins but nothing happens.  
These controllers use 2.5VDC as the neutral position.  So if you wire each axis of the joystick to a regulated 5V voltage, the joy stick would send a 2.5V signal to the controller.  The controller would see this as the off position and the actuator would be off.  Pushing the joystick on either side of the neutral position would change the polarity to the actuator thus revering  the direction of stroke.  The amount of movement of the joystick off center is proportional the voltage and thus the speed the DC motor spins and thus the speed the actuator strokes.  
It could be the joystick would be more intuitive than momentary on switches with rheostat to control the manipulator.  I have experimented with one of these Lenco trim actuators and one of these Sabretooth motor controllers and they mate up very well together.
Just a thought.  
The nice thing about having this open source is that each Psubber can implement the way they want.

    On Thursday, September 3, 2020, 05:28:32 PM CDT, Steve McQueen via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:  

 Much appreciated. My sub is now looking forward to v3.0 🙂
On Thu, Sep 3, 2020, 6:00 PM Alec Smyth via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

Hi friends,
The PSUBS Community Projects page (http://www.psubs.org/community/projects/ ) now features an "open source manipulator" developed by Hank Pronk and me. This is an intentionally simple manipulator built using only a drill press and an angle grinder, except for a few plastic bushings that were turned on a lathe for expedience. We purposely avoided things like aluminum welding, to keep it's fabrication as accessible as possible. The page contains blueprints, photos, and a bill of materials - but I recommend beginning at the "Start Here" document in the ZIP file. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, or if you have any suggested improvements.

Best,Alec_______________________________________________
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