Building and configuring a stmbl v5

Hi,

in the following topic I want to document the process of building and configuring a stmbl v5 servo drive. Since I found it a bit hard to get started and reading through the documentation, I will try to explain my process step by step so others can follow.

But first I wand to thank freak for designing the v5 and bringing the project back to life. Also thanks to Rene and all other contributors.

I got two Mitsubishi RV-4FLM robots without a controller, so I need 12 drives. I decided to build them my self, because I wanted to get a bit back into electronics and also save some money. You can also buy drives form freak (contact is on the github page). The price he asks is very reasonable and I wouldn't recommend building the drives yourself if you don't have a fair amount of experience with electronics. So if you only need a few drives, please support freak. Before I get questions about it, I also want to clarify, that I will not sell drives as long as they are available from the project maintainers.

So lets get started:
I ordered 15 PCBs with almost all SMD components assembled from JLCPCB. I did solder some inductors by hand, because I couldn't easily find a exact match in the jcpcb parts catalog. While doable, I would recommend against it, the layout is just not made for hand soldering. I'm still waiting for some connectors to arrive, so I only have pictures of half completed boards.
imgur.com/a/0Gni6MG

I would like to, but it tells me that they are to big. Even at like 200 kB. The error message says they can be up to 1.6 MB

Wow a stmbl v5, didn't know that was happening. Think I've been waiting 5 years or better to see that.

Look at this topic: forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/5375...ate-on-stmbl?start=0

Would probably be cool if they added support for the DMM servo encoder protocol since they're relatively cheap. It's not "open" but I have the documentation for it.

Adding support for different encoder protocols is possible.
The hardware supports lots of different feedback interfaces: freakontrol.github.io/stmbl/docs/pinouts...g---serial-protocols
And I'm looking at the moment at their Mitsubishi implementation, since I need multiturn for the robot. But there is no documentation of the protocol.

If you send me some details about the protocol and electrical parameters, I can look into it. But please open a separate topic or open a github issue, because I want to try to keep this topic as a instruction how to configure the drives.

jst wrote:

Adding support for different encoder protocols is possible.
The hardware supports lots of different feedback interfaces: freakontrol.github.io/stmbl/docs/pinouts...g---serial-protocols
And I'm looking at the moment at their Mitsubishi implementation, since I need multiturn for the robot. But there is no documentation of the protocol.

If you send me some details about the protocol and electrical parameters, I can look into it. But please open a separate topic or open a github issue, because I want to try to keep this topic as a instruction how to configure the drives.
 

Yeah I can add it as a github issue or something, I'd just have to send you the protocol docs directly. I'm not sure what their stance on publicly sharing the document is since I haven't seen them do that, I received it as a customer with an inquiry.

Then just send me an mail (adress is in my profile)