After you install the encoder motors to your robots, you may need to tuning the PID parameters and other parameters. The tuning tool can be downloaded here. Connect the driver module and PC with a USB-to-UART adapter, then choose the right serial port at the bottom-right corner and click the button DISCONNECTED. If it transforms to CONNECTED, that means the connection works well.
Check out the main UI below:
We use double PID loop to control the position, so there are two sets of PID parameters: position and speed. You can also set the encoder resolution, the gear reduction ratio of the motor, and the I2C address of the driver module. In the top-right corner, you can choose which motor you want to tuning, Slot 1 or Slot 2.
Four buttons under the parameters are used to operate the parameter storage. Button GET to read the parameters from the driver module and display them. Button TEST to temporarily use the parameters you set without saving them into the EEPROM. Button DEFAULT to display the default parameters. Button SAVE to save the parameters to the EEPROM of the driver module.
After editing the parameters, click the TEST button. Then fill the “target speed” and click button RUN to check how the parameters perform. It’ll show the speed-time curve to you so that you can tune the parameters according to the performance. The corresponding color of curves are displayed at the bottom.