SPARK MAX Server

This tool is a CLI tool and server used for communicating to a SPARK MAX motor controller over USB. Basic commands can be used to configure the device, and a ZeroMQ server can be set up for remote control. This is also the backend for the SPARK MAX Client.

Building

Steps to build the sparkusb server/cli tool

1. Install and setup git
2. Install and setup a go environemnt (minimum 1.7, recommended 1.10+)
3. On linux instatll zeromq sudo apt-get install libzmq3-dev (windows includes pre-built binaries)
4. Clone this repo under $GOPATH/src/github.com/REVrobotics/
5. Run make deps or manually get go dependencies
6. run make to build the project

Pre-reqs:

• Working Go environment intalled Not sure the minimum dependancy, as of development we are using 1.10.3, the ubuntu package in 16.04 usses 1.6 which does not work properly. Ubuntu 18.04 uses 1.10.1 and is ok (Same with Linux Mint 19). Successfully built using go 1.7 on a raspberry pi zero w.

• Windows requires the Visual C++ Redistributable 2013.

• Make build system

Go dependencies:

To install the below run make deps

Manual package list:

go get github.com/pebbe/zmq4
go get -u github.com/spf13/cobra/cobra
go get go.bug.st/serial.v1
go get github.com/tarm/serial
go get -u github.com/golang/protobuf/protoc-gen-go

Structure

This application can run both as a command line utility or remote command server to interface to the SPARK MAX. It includes the following packages:

• sparkmax - Protocol buffer definitions of all types and messages and hardware interface
• spark0mq - Includes the ZeroMQ server for network communication
• cmd - All defined commands for either cli tool, zmq server, or both depending on the command

Front-end Client

Moved to its own repo SPARK-Max-Client

Usage

This tool can either be used as a command line tool (CLI), or remote server. When used as a command line tool, help strings for each command can be accessed by typing sparkmax.exe [command] help

When setting parameters, the value is not saved to the flash until commanded to do so. This can be done by calling sparkmax.exe burn

CLI Examples

Firmware Version To read the firmware version

sparkmax.exe firmware

Firmware version v0.1.342

Ramp Rates To read the ramp rate type

sparkmax.exe parameter kRampRate Output> 100.0000

To set the ramp rate:

sparkmax.exe parameter kRampRate 1 sparkmax.exe burn

Remote Server

The RPC server uses ZeroMQ with messages defined by protocol buffers. There is currenly a single socket which can connect to a single client, which runs commands. This interface is designed for the SPARK MAX Client, any connection can send commands. To run the server, run

sparkmax.exe -r

Known Issues

• On Linux machines with ModemManager installed, the device may show up as busy for ~15 seconds while modem manager tries to decide if its a modem. To disable this add a custom UDEV rule, here is a detailed description. VID = 0483 PID = 5740

For example:

/etc/udev/rules.d/99-ttyacms.rules has the line:

ATTRS{idVendor}=="0483" ATTRS{idProduct}=="5740", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1"

• ‘Burn’ command throws an error but still succeeds.
• -i, --interactive command is not yet implemented
• --config is not yet implemented