First time posting but have been browsing for a couple months now after making my first OSR2 (the scripts shared here are awesome, thank you scripters!). Just today I finished putting together my first SR6 and, while testing it, found an issue I’m hoping someone can point out a potential cause of.
When running the SR6 through multifunplayer, and connected to the SR6 through Wi-Fi using Khrull’s firmware, I saw that when running fast/complex scripts the SR6 would stop moving for periods of about 3 - 5 second before suddenly starting moving again.
A few theories I’ve had are that potentially the ESP32 is being overloaded by trying to send so many commands out to the servos so quickly? Or maybe the Wi-Fi connection isn’t sending the stream of data quickly enough to the ESP32?
I did purchase a cheap ESP32 and servos for the build… So that definitely could be the cause here… But hoping that someone with experience with SR6s or these mechatronic applications in general might be able to suggest other possibilities.
I’d guess you’re trying to draw more power than that power supply can handle. I’ve measured close to 60W with just two servos running with fast scripts on an OSR2. You’ll want to either split the power up across servos with multiple supplies, or get a larger power supply that can handle the load.
60W from only two servos!? 20 kg.cm or stronger? Good to know though, worth looking into. I hadn’t bought myself a multimeter during these projects but would be a good bit of kit to have in the future anyway.
Thanks, I will try running the ESP32 through USB and if that shows promise I’ll look into separating the power supplies.
I have read your posts about the OSR2+'s that you sell, thank you for being so extensive with your write up, and it looks like you are running a single power input to your custom PCB which powers both your ESP32 and servos. Is this because the OSR2s are just a lot less power hungry than SR6s or am I missing something about your OSR2s which handles this?
The OSR2+ AND SR6’s servos should be able to be easily powered with a single quality power supply of 60+ watts. More headroom the better, so I always recommend a power supply outputting 120 watts or more. Especially with the cheap Chinese power supplies, no idea if the manuf is overrating theirs, or has an overly sensitive overcurrent protection in place.
In my opinion, the ESP32 should always be powered by a dedicated USB power supply and shouldn’t be getting power from the same source as the servos. It will need to share a (-), but there shouldn’t be any (+) power coming from the servo power supply to the ESP32 at all.
Ah right, thanks, my mistake. I didn’t notice the usb port hole in the photos of your OSR2’s, and since you have your custom PCB I thought it all ran from the same power source.
Yeah, it’s really not worth trying to power the ESP32 from the same power source as the servos unless you’re going to go through the trouble of making a intermediary power stage that provides filtering and storage to avoid spikes or droops. ESP32s also have the tendency to send out zero or max PWM signal when rebooting, so your servos have the chance of moving in opposite extreme directions and burning themselves out due to strain. Not worth the risk!