September Release

This is the September hardware release.

August has been silly season for me, with illness and family summer commitments taking up a lot of my time, so this release is a minor one. I have a couple of cool things for you: An OSR2 base that supports a whole new power bus alternative, and a tweak to the official ESP32 firmware for OSR2/SR6 that addresses a couple of issues.

Several months ago I released some STLs for alternate base parts for the OSR2 that supported, amongst other things, the XT60 power socket, which is a significant improvement over the barrel jack connector used in the basic OSR2. This solution is still a bit awkward however because it involves finding a suitable 6v power supply, soldering on an XT60 plug, and of course it also requires a power bus.

I always like to look for simpler, off-the-shelf solutions. Since I first used the USB-C trigger module in the SSR1 I have been intrigued by the prospect of using it on my other devices. This is essentially a tiny PCB with a USB-C socket on it that makes it possible to power a device with a USB-C laptop power supply. On the SSR1 I used a 20v trigger module, because the motor on the SSR1 uses 20v.

The servos on an OSR2 run best at 6v or 7.2v, depending on your servos, so it is not possible to directly power the servos from the 20v trigger. It is possible, however, to power the servos via a Servo PDB, which is essentially an off-the-shelf power bus with a built in voltage regulator.

I have been testing using a Matek Servo PDB, which is rated for a 5.5v-36v input, and which is capable of outputting 5-8.2v. It's rated to 4 amps of continuous current, which should be plenty for an OSR2. Other boards are available of course.

The OSR2 base in this update will hold a USB-C 20v trigger module, with a clamp attached using an M2 bolt. As with the XT60 base I have included versions for use with and without M3 thread inserts.

(BTW you can power the PDB from the 20v output from the trigger, but do not attach 20v to the Vin pin on the ESP32 as it can't handle more than 12v. If you want to use this to also power the ESP32 for wireless use I recommend that you use a separate 5v 0.5A regulator)

The other thing that I am sharing in this post is an updated Arduino sketch for the ESP32 SR6 and OSR2. I had wanted to get to a point where I can distribute binary files for this, making it unnecessary to use Arduino IDE, but an issue has come up I think needs addressing.

This update has some changes that account for changes in the ESP32's LED library, which is the code that is used to control the servos. A number of users have contacted me recently saying that this has been throwing up errors, and hopefully this should fix that.

I have also added support for the TCode buttons that I added to the Arduino-based OSR2 a few months ago. These are based on a resistor ladder, and for the ESP32 they can be attached to pin D35, along with the 3v3 pin, as the ESP32 works on 3.3v. Additionally, or alternatively, the D34 pin can be used for an "edge" button.

There are a few other little tweaks to the code. For example setting the microseconds-per-radian parameter has been changed to something that can be understood by people who aren't Tempest. Now you just enter the maximum movement range of the servos being used, which is by default 180 degrees.

Have fun!

Tempest

(The files are protected with the september password because of an ongoing Patreon security flaw. Check your email. As a $8 or $16 patron you should have received the passwords in your welcome email, but feel free to contact me if you have any trouble finding them. The files are also available on my discord server.)