Re: [Playerstage-developers] Updated SICK LMS/PLS driver, testing needed.

[Kevin B. <ba...@gm...>]

Sorry for the late response.

On Dec 20, 2007 3:09 PM, Paul Osmialowski <new...@ki...> wrote:
> Can anyone put this on a tracker?

I'll do this shortly.

> Kevin, can you give an example of USB RS422 adapter based on CP210x?
> (manufacturer and exact model). What kernel module does it use?

The one I'm using my friend actually made (Another advantage it has is
you can use 500K mode from MATLAB's serial library). It uses the
CP210x driver (http://www.etheus.net/CP210x_Linux_Driver) which is
included in the kernel.

My friend recommended this adapter, however I'm not sure if it can be
ordered outside of China:
http://www.21elec.com/prodshow.asp?ProdId=20050717

But another option is this:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=198#


On Jan 3, 2008 8:42 AM, Peter Nordin <pet...@li...> wrote:
> I am using a FTDI based USB-RS422 converter and a SICKLMS200 laser and I
> have now tried your new driver. These are my findings.
>
> When I am using kernel 2.6.18-5 (in Debian 4) the "old" driver works
> fine at baudrates 9600 and 38400. It usually works with 500000 also but
> I know that I have had problems sometimes when I  have tried this mode.
> Normally I use 38400 because I know it will work.
>
> With your driver everything seems to be ok at all baudrates. 500000 have
> been working every time I have tried it so far.  (perhaps 8 times, I
> dont really remember). 38400 also work every time.

Good to hear.

> I have been trying to use a newer kernel version  in debian, version
> 2.6.22-3 from Debian backports to fix another problem I was having. With
> this kernel the "old" sicklms200 driver would always time out at any
> baudrate. Which was a bit disappointing. I dont know what they have
> changed in the kernel (or the ftdi serial driver) to cause this.
>
> When I tried your new driver with this new kernel I was actually able to
> get the laser working most of the time. But only at 500000, 38400 never
> works? I get different timeouts every time. I could not try 9600 because
> the driver told me it was not a supported transfer speed.

The way the driver is setup you need to connect at 9600 to be able to
transfer at 9600. I considered changing this but didn't, but I might
as it could be useful for debugging. Try changing your connect speed
and transfer speed to only include 9600, and then restart the SICK,
then connecting.

> It is strange that the higher baudrate works but not the lower one.

It is. The way the FTDI driver works it has to setup some multipliers
and I didn't look into this code. My theory is that they are not being
setup correctly for non high speed mode, but the old kernel either
accepted the wrong inputs, or defaulted to low speed mode. I'll look
into it.


> Kevin Barry wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I've been working on fixing up the SICKLMS200 driver.
> >
> > Changes so far:
> >
> > --serial_high_speed_mode
> >      [0] The old FTDI method. Linux only. (With no changes made).
> >      [1] Fake baud rates as used by the CP21xx RS422 to USB. (Ie you
> > open a tty at speed 230400 as far as the OS is concerned, but at the
> > RS422 level it's actually 500k). This might work with non-CP21xx
> > methods, and this mode but with no remapping (ie set
> > serial_high_speed_baudremap to 500000) might work with other
> > converters. I've only tested it with the Cp21xx, but on both Mac OS X
> > and Linux.
> >
> > Example configuration files are included.
> >
> > --Better time outs. I've increased some timeouts and decreased some
> > timeouts, but most importantly I added a separate time out for receive
> > the header of the message. This is because it /can/ take a long time
> > to get the whole message sometimes, but if you don't get the header
> > quickly, you'll never get the message. This makes the trial/error of
> > connecting at different baud rates much faster.
> >
> > --PLS support ??
> > I don't have a PLS to test with. But I looked at the code from the
> > sickpls and it seems almost identical. The password is different, but
> > I now generate the password based off the response from the
> > GetLaserType() query (Meaning it works on LMS and should work on PLS).
> > The only other difference I could find was that the intensities are
> > &'ed with 0x07 rather than 0x0E, so I included this too. I'm concerned
> > that the PLS might not support SetLaserRes and SetLaserConfig, but I
> > left them active for now hoping that someone can test it.
> >
> > For now I'm distributing this as a tarball because I'd really like
> > some testing and I think an external module is easier to test with.
> > Especially in the case of the PLS where I might need to make a few
> > versions before it works. But I'll be submitting a patch soon. If
> > people with FTDI's could test this patch too and report on high speed
> > mode success/failure. Also if people not using any high speed mode
> > could test this to ensure I didn't do anything silly with the timeouts
> > (Though I've tested a bit at 38400 and it seems good).
> >
> > http://es.udmercy.edu/~barryke/player/sicklms200b_20071218.tar.gz
> >
> > -Kevin Barry
> >
>
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