Quick update with a video.
It works fine. First 4x4 SimpleFOC vehicle! Each wheel is controlled independently by one MCU. Strong enough to carry me.
Running open loop, next I’ll check hall sensors closed loop. When I get time.
Cable management is a nightmare.
I’ll see if I can design a baseboard to hold all components, those cables are very impractical.
Cheers,
Valentine
My cats had a fight and tore up my setup overnight. Seems they also broke my MCU board. I will not be posting updates until I re-order the MCU and some other stuff from JLC, that was my last MCU dev board I had left. I put an order but it will take a week. It’s a very rare 144 pin high density custom STM32F103 of my own design, cannot buy a replacement.
Cheers,
Valentine
Which chip is it exactly?
OK I have hoverboard controllers with vct6, I thought it was large but it’s only 100 pin
Hovereboards control only 2 motors, so 100 pins is more than enough. F103 has two advanced motor 4x4 PWM timers, iirc? Or perhaps one, I need to check.
Valentine
Most of the hoverboard controllers have stm32f103rct6 (or gd32 clone), I have some boards with stm32f103vct6.
I checked, F103 has only one advanced motor timer, so you cannot have two 6pwm motors on one mcu. They probably have two MCUs per board working independently. one each wheel.
Valentine
No no it has 2, tim1 and tim8.
You won’t need advanced timer’s because you use 3pwm?
Yes you are correct I was reading the datasheet of the smaller density, yes on the Z they have two.
So my original recollection was correct, then I stepped on my own tail.
Cheers,
Valentine
Update. While I’m waiting for the MCU to get shipped, I designed a baseboard.
Will get it next week and assemble the vehicle to do some more serious testing.
The MCU is shipped, BTW. If you haven’t seen a 144 pin “Blue Pill”, feast yer eyes on that !!!
Cheers,
Valentine
Too bad your mcu daughterboard has the connectors on top. Will be pretty fiddly to reach the reset button or the extra ports? Checking the status LEDs is also cumbersome (if needed)
Eh… this is an intermediate weekend test to check feasibility. If this shows any promise the next iteration will look very different.
While I was waiting for the new boards I pulled out one old design and repurposed it for mecanum setup.
Behold! The 12 inch omnidirectional wonder!
It fits on the 6-inch hoverboard wheels. This thing is huge.
Cheers,
Valentine
Only 4 wheels? 
I can make one with 88 wheels given enough money and time. Mecanum needs only 4xn wheels. There are only 4 vectors.
Cheers
Valentine
Yeah I am not sure why he went for 8
Ran out of metal and rubber?
Valentine
PS mecanum needs 2xn +2xm number of wheels if i want to be anal about it.
It seems pretty straightforward to 3D print a mould (mold?) for silicone-rubber meccanum rollers? I’d go for resin printed moulds. Heck, it might even be possible to print them directly from flexible resin.
