Increase BOE Shield Arlo’s Top Speed

Increase Arlo’s Top Speed in Pulse Mode

The DHB-10 defaults to a speed control scale from 1000 to 2000 us.  That’s writeMicroseconds() duration values from 1000 (full speed clockwise) to 1500 (stop) to 2000 (full speed counterclockwise).  The DHB-10 has a scale command for adjusting that range.  For example SCALE 200 would make it fit PULSOUT durations from 1300 to 1700.  The result, the Arlo goes a lot faster!  This also means it’ll travel and turn more for a given number of pulses, so some recalibration may be in order.

• Put the Arlo up on blocks so it cannot run away while connected to the computer.
• MAIN and MOTORS power on, BOE Shield power to 2.
• Upload Change Pulse Scale.ino.
• MOTORS power off.
• Upload ForwardLeftRightBackward.ino.
• MAIN & BOE Shield powers off.
• Take to Arlo navigation area.
• Make sure you’ve got enough room for the Arlo to go more than twice the distance of last time.
• Turn Main, Motors, and BOE Shield powers on.
• Optionally, note the turn angle and recalibrate.
• Optionally, to go back to the slower speeds, uncomment the commented Arlo.writeConfig(“SCALE”, 1000) command and re-run the ChangePulseScale.ino.

/*
  Arlo-Change-Pulse-Scale
 
  Change pulse scale from 1000...2000 us to 1300 to 1700 us so that
  Robotics with the BOE Shield-Bot examples can run the Arlo at top speed.
*/

#include <ArloRobot.h>                        // Include Arlo library
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>                   // Include SoftwareSerial library

// Arlo and serial objects required
ArloRobot Arlo;                               // Arlo object
SoftwareSerial ArloSerial(12, 13);            // Serial in I/O 12, out I/O 13

void setup()                                  // Setup function
{
  tone(4, 3000, 2000);                        // Piezospeaker beep
  Serial.begin(9600);                         // Start terminal serial port
 
  ArloSerial.begin(19200);                    // Start DHB-10 serial com
  Arlo.begin(ArloSerial);                     // Pass to Arlo object

  Arlo.writeConfig("SCALE", 200);             // Change pulse to speed response
  //Arlo.writeConfig("SCALE", 1000);          // Want default back?  Un-comment
  Arlo.storeConfig("SCALE");                  // Save setting in EEPROM

  Arlo.writePulseMode();                      // Get ready to receive pulses
}

void loop() {}                                // Nothing for main loop