SyRen50 PDF
SyRen50 PDF
SyRen50 PDF
February 2011
Basic Information:
Dimensions:
Features
Synchronous regenerative drive:
Going one step farther than just regenerative braking, a SyRen motor driver will return power to
the battery any time a deceleration or motor reversal is commanded. This can lead to dramatic
improvements in run time for systems that stop or reverse often, like a placement robot or a
vehicle driving on hilly terrain. This drive scheme also saves power by returning the inductive
energy stored in the motor windings to the battery each switching cycle, instead of burning it as
heat in the motor windings. This makes part-throttle operation very efficient.
Compact Size:
SyRen utilizes surface mount construction to provide the most power from a compact package.
Its small size and light weight mean you have more space for cargo, batteries, or can make your
robot smaller and more nimble than the competition.
Carefree reversing:
Unlike some other motor drivers, there is no need for the SyRen to stop before being
commanded to reverse. You can go from full forward immediately to full reverse or vice versa.
Braking and acceleration are proportional to the amount of reversal commanded, so gentle or
rapid reversing is possible.
Battery Terminals
B+ and B
The battery or power supply is connected to
terminals B- and B+. B- connects to the
negative side of the battery (usually black.)
B+ connects to the positive side of the battery
(usually red or yellow.) Often it is convenient
to connect the battery through a connector
The battery connects to terminals B+ and Binstead of directly to the motor driver. This
makes it easy to unplug the battery for charging, and prevents plugging in the battery backwards.
Power terminals
0V and 5V
The 0V and 5V connections are used to power
and interface to low-power control circuits.
The 5V connection is a 5v power output.
This is useful for supplying power to lowcurrent devices, such as a potentiometer or a
radio receiver. The 5v terminal is capable of
The 5V terminal can be used to power small
supplying 100 milliamps if the source battery
is 12.6v or less. If the source battery is greater loads, like a potentiometer or a radio receiver.
The 0V signal must be connected to the ground
than 12.6 volts, the 5v terminal is capable of
of the device generating the input signal.
supplying 10 milliamps. If more power is
needed, we recommend using a ParkBEC or SW050 to supply the needed 5V power to the rest of
the robot.
The 0V connection is the signal ground for the SyRen. In order to receive input signals correctly,
it must be connected to the ground of the device sending the signals. 0V is internally connected
to B-.
Using the 0V and 5v connections to power a radio receiver in R/C mode and potentiometer in
analog mode is shown in Figures 2.1 and 2.2. If you are using multiple SyRens running from the
same radio receiver, only one should have the 5v line connected.
Lithium cutoff:
Switch 3 of the DIP switch block selects lithium cutoff. If
switch 3 is in the down position as shown the SyRen will
automatically detect the number of series lithium cells at
startup, and set a cutoff voltage of 3.0 volts per cell. The
number of detected cells is flashed out on the Status LED.
Lithium Cutoff enabled
If the number of cells detected is too low, your battery is in
a severely discharged state and must be charged before operation. Failure to do so may cause
damage to the battery pack. When 3.0V per cell is reached, the SyRen will shut down, preventing
damage to the battery pack. This is necessary because a lithium battery pack discharged below
3.0v per cell will lose capacity and batteries discharged below 2.0v per cell may not recharge
ever.
Lithium cutoff mode may also be useful to increase the number of battery cycles you can get
when running from a lead acid battery in non-critical applications. Because the system will
continue to draw some power, even with the motor shut down, it is important to unplug the
battery from the SyRen promptly once the cutoff is reached when using lithium batteries. If the
SyRen is being run from NiCd, NiMH or alkaline batteries, or from a power supply, switch 3
should be in the up position.
Note on using
filtered PWM
in Analog
Mode
Figure 4.1: Fast filtering
There are two operating modes for R/C. These are selected with switch 5.
2400 Baud
9600 Baud
19200 Baud
38400 Baud
What baud rate to use is dependent on what your host can provide and the update speed
necessary. 9600 baud or 19200 baud are recommended as the best starting points. If
communication is unreliable, decrease the baud rate. If communications are reliable, you may
increase the baud rate. The maximum update speed on the SyRen 50 is approximately 2000
commands per second. Sending characters faster than this will not cause problems, but it will not
increase the responsiveness of the controller either.
The baud rate may be changed with power on by changing the DIP switch settings. There is no
need to reset or cycle power after a baud rate change.
There are 2 operating options for Simplified Serial. These are selected by the position of Switch
6.
Packet Overview
The packet format for the SyRen 50 consists of an address byte, a command byte, a data byte and
a seven bit checksum. Address bytes have value greater than 128, and all subsequent bytes have
values 127 or lower. This allows multiple types of devices to share the same serial line.
An example packet and pseudo-code to generate it are shown in Figures 7.1 and 7.2
Void DriveForward(char address, char speed)
Packet
{
Address: 130
Putc(address);
Command : 0
Putc(0);
Data: 64
Putc(speed);
Checksum: 66
Putc((address + 0 + speed) & 0b01111111);
}
Figure 7.1: Example 50% forward
Address: 128
Address: 129
Address: 130
Address: 131
Address: 132
Address: 133
Address: 134
Address: 135
Commands:
The command byte is the second byte of the packet. There are four possible commands in
packetized serial mode. Each is followed by one byte of data
Checksum:
To prevent data corruption, each packet is terminated with a checksum. If the checksum is not
correct, the data packet will not be acted upon. The checksum is calculated as follows:
Checksum = address byte +command byte +data byte
The checksum should be added with all unsigned 8 bit integers, and then ANDed with the mask
0b01111111 in an 8 bit system.
Example: So in this function, if address is 130, command is 0 (for driving forward), speed is 64,
the checksum should calculate as follows:
130+0+64 = 194
194 in binary is 0b11000010
0b11000010 & 0b01111111 = 0b01000010
Once all the data is sent, this will result in the SyRen with address 130 driving forward at
roughly half throttle.
The SyRens 7 bit design is done this way to allow different products that dont use the same
protocol to live on the same bus.
Emergency Stop:
In Packetized Serial mode, the S2 input is configured as an active-low emergency stop. It is
pulled high internally, so if this feature isnt needed, it can be ignored. If an emergency stop is
desired, all the S2 inputs can be tied together. Pulling the S2 input of one or more SyRen 50s low
will cause the driver to shut down. This should be tied to an emergency stop button if used in a
device that could endanger humans.