Please see my preceding post. With just a laptop connected to an arduino, I cannot get any voltage out of PD3. Ive double checked the sketch and confirmed (as far as my limited knowledge allows) that this is indeed the right PWM pin.
Yeah, I know… I honestly feel totally stupid, but I’m just going round and round in ever decreasing circles which is why I went to a developers’ forum and offered £200 to the first person who could get this working at home, then guide me.
Maybe we are all misunderstanding something in software? Just none of us can see what this is.
As I say, I’m not criticising, it would be churlish of me to do so. Basically I’ve been dreaming of creating an autonomous vehicle for some years now, made various attempts, failed and then revisited the idea months later.
One night I saw AOG and just about wet myself!
As a newbie, my experience was:
Saw demo vids, watched all of Brian’s vids including the discussions.
Googled AgOpenGPS and got taken to
2.1. Followed download link to
2.2. Downloaded all files from
(Please note that this page is now much clearer than it was when I last downloaded it a few weeks back).
Built the circuit as per the auto steer schematic, didn’t work. Occam’s Razor, reduced it to its simplest: just Arduino and MD10C, 3 pins connected to PD3, PD4 and GND as per sketch.
Fired up AOG and tested manual steering to see if the motor moved.
It never has.
I realised that I was using old instructions for new versions of AOG, so one recommendation would be to attach the relevant build document to each release noting any changes. I appreciate that this is asking a lot of someone’s time, so when I have this working I will volunteer to write up some stuff and see if the admins like it: I do a fair bit of technical teaching and document writing as part of my job.
You need to connect the D6 pin to ground. otherwise, the PWM pins D3 and D9 will not output voltage.
in AutosteerPVCBv2.ino setup…
#define SwitchOrButton 0 // set to 0 to use steer switch as switch
// set to 1 to use steer switch as button
// Button/switch pulls pin low to activate
Thank you so much. I’m serious about that bottle if you want to PM me some details.
I’ll let you know how I get on with this.
@Admins: I intend to apply this to a completely different field (if you’ll excuse the pun). My interest is in history and I am aiming to turn this into an automated ground penetrating radar attached to an electrical vehicle.
Would it be worth putting up a section on “Alternative Projects”, or something?
the next pcb version 2 is on the way. i hope it comes with a pretty box with place for motorcontroller and f9p and 12 to 24 v converter. all soldered and ready…
if anybody in europe have interrest please use this form. you get information after it is ready.
@bluerabbit The topic says getting started with PCB hardware for beginners. If you place you questions under appropriate headings, it can make it easier for people to find relevant information at a later date.
Were you using Brians PCB? If you were, would your issue have been avoided? Were you using the standard AutosteerPCBv2.ino? I’m thinking… but not 100% sure that you didn’t have a ground connected to D6 (switch circuit that stops steer motor spinning when steer motor is away from steering wheel) which would not allow current to flow to motor driver? I’m thinking if you had have put a photo up of your breadboard setup someone would have noticed that D6 was not going to ground? Also I think you owe MylArti £200.
Cool! Always neat to see how this software finds alternative uses. By all means we would love to see what the project looks like. Just post it in the About the Project ideas - in progress category. Glad you got it working!
Thanks for the info. This is a project for people that are interested in tinkering and exploring, so no surprise there are a lot of different directions and options. I’m still really happy that this has opened up a low cost option for those that are interested but can’t afford/justify the commercial solutions.
I’ll start looking over the PCB board options. Have all the other equipment. I may even resurrect my project from the winter of 2018 in using two GPS units and calculating heading. I was sing two reach units at the time and they just weren’t stable enough in holding rtk. I think the F9P has fixed that. I’ve had good luck with the ublox F9P-C099 modules last year. Theoretically can get heading from them, maybe even tilt.
I use relatively small (~100 HP) equipment. I think it bounces around more in the field than the larger tractors so it gets more noise into the signal, so dampening out the noise is a fun challenge.
With this story and the solution wwfarm and mylarti found, I would suggest Brian to add a line like this in the supplied autosteerpcbv2.ino setup zone, (below the other 3 info lines), to point out how it works with the AOG program
// set to 0 to use steer switch as switch
// set to 1 to use steer switch as button
// Button/switch pulls pin low to activate
//When set to 0, switch must be closed to let AOG activate steering
My problem, the one thing that lead to me spending countless hours and almost giving up many times was my confusion over the switch.
As far as I saw things, I didn’t need a switch for this (and I’m still a little unclear on what this switch is for. Is it a deadman?) so I ignored it assuming any defaults would be “switch on”.
But yes, please make this explicit, I think this may be a stumbling block for some.
After my experience, if I were to write a tutorial for this, I would begin with, “Are you using a switch? If not, don’t be like Bluerabbit, ensure you short PD6 before you continue.
In fact, might it be useful to do a component by component installation guide, “First, lets get the motor working.” [instructions and tests]. “Next the GPS” [instructions and test]? Dunno, but it would have definitely helped me.
Basically the steer switch turns autosteer on when you push your steer motor against the steering wheel ( via some sort of micro switch for example) or is a physical switch that turns on hydraulic operation If it is being done that way.
That way it (automatically) stops the steering motor from spinning (wildly) when you flip it away from steering wheel, could also be done manually by clicking autosteer button in AOG.
Could also be a safety switch in the seat(in series with steer switch) so when you get up the autosteer shuts off.
I use button .ino with hydraulic steering, and have a foot pedal and every time I press it AOG shifts between on and off. I have also an inductive encoder (But could be optical encoder or magnetic encoder or reed switch) the encoder turns off AOG if the steering wheel is turned. Others have a pressure switch to turn off AOG (reacts when you turn the steering wheel which makes higher oil pressure in oil trapped between orbitrol, and the valve that shifts between automatic and manual steering)
Of course, you guys all have drills, etc strapped to your steering wheels. My motor is attached directly to the steering So it’s effectively always on.
My device is a small electric scooter, so I can carry it into place, I don’t really ever need to disengage this.
