getting_started.md

Getting started

Wire everything

To communicate with the Hexapod's board you need to wire:

The power:

• VS2+ from the Hexapod to a 5V pin on your board
• VS2- from the Hexapod to a GND pin on your board

The serial communication:

• TX from the Hexapod to the RX pin of your board
• RX from the Hexapod to the TX pin of your board
• G from the Hexapod to a GND pin of your board.

Set up the communication

In order to talk to the hexapod you need to set up a serial communication.

The Hexapod's board reads the serial and interpret commands.

As an example, here is how to do it with Arduino (wtth the SoftwareSerial Library) :

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

SoftwareSerial mySerial(2, 3); // RX, TX

void setup()
{
  // Open serial communications (with pc) and wait for port to open:
  Serial.begin(115200);
  while (!Serial) {
    // wait for serial port to connect
  }
  
  // set the data rate for the SoftwareSerial port
  mySerial.begin(38400);
  
  Serial.println("Goodnight moon!"); // print to pc
  mySerial.println("Hello, world?"); // print to custom serial port (aka hexapod)
}

void loop()
{
}

Commands

Deplacements:

In order for the order the hexapod's board to position a servo, you must send a serial command in the following format.

# <ch> P <pw> S <spd> T <time> <cr>

• ch: pin / channel to which the servo is connected (0 to 31) in decimal

• pw: desired pulse width (normally 500 to 2500) in microseconds

• spd: servo movement speed in microseconds per second*

• time: time in microseconds to travel from the current position to the desired position. This affects all servos (65535 max)

• cr: carriage return (ASCII 13)**

Example:

#5P1500S750<cr>

You can also combine commands in order to go faster

#5P1600#17P750S500#2P2250T2000<cr>

Query movements status

You can check if a movement was completed with

Q<cr>

This will return a "." if the previous move is complete, or a "+" if it is still in progress.

It is useful if you want to check if the hexapod movement did not encounter an obstacle.

More

For more detailed information you should read the lynxmotion documentation

It has more commands explained and more details about the board, it's a must if you want to know everything about the board.