Operation Manual - Inverted Pendulum

Basic Operation

1. Power the given computer on.

2. Press the start button hard on the emergency stop.

3. Make sure that the circuit breaker is flipped into the on position.
 4. Open the invPend.ino file in the Arduino program.
5. Press the upload button in the Arduino interface.

6. A green light will start blinking on the circuit.

7. Once the green light has stopped blinking press the black reset button on the
circuit.
 8. Manually bring the pendulum to the upright position.
9. While keeping the pendulum upright, press the small white button on the circuit,
and carefully release the pendulum. The pendulum should balance itself now.

10. It can be bumped to a certain degree while keeping itself balanced. If it should
fall repeat steps 7-9 to make it balance once again.
 11. If it is no longer balancing even after this, refer to the calibration section.

Calibration

1. Make sure that the computer and system are powered up, and that the program
is open. If not refer back to the Basic Operation section.
2. Allow the pendulum to go to a downward resting position, and make sure that the
black button on the circuit is depressed (the lights on the speed controller are a solid
orange.
3. In the Arduino interface change the DEBUG variable to 1 and set the
ANGLE_OFFSET and ANGLE_OFFSET_FINE variables to 0.
4. Upload the Arduino program.
5. Enable serial monitor in tools serial monitor.
6. While the pendulum is kept in the downward position, rotate the encoder adapter
until the value of the angle reaches zero and starts going over to 6.28.The number
should be as close to the crossover as possible.
7. Set the ANGLE_OFFSET variable back to 3.141526536.
8. Run the upload the program once again.
9. Balance the pendulum so it is balancing upwards under its own power without
falling.
10. Read the angle value from the serial monitor and input the negative of that value
as the ANGLE_OFFSET_FINE variable.
11. Upload the program again with the new variables, and confirm that the angle of
the pendulum is zero when balanced upwards.
12. Change the DEBUG variable back to 0 and upload the program.