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PhenixRising
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Joined: 07/11/2023
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1139

Posted: 11:07pm 25 Mar 2025

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This popped-up on my YouTube

What the heck is that???

My PicoMite version was perfect right from the get-go...this is not a controlled motor.

Quote
Motivation for creating this tutorial: The author of this tutorial has a PhD degree in control theory from the top engineering school in the world. In addition to this, he published a number of papers in prestigious and competitive control engineering journals. Also, he worked on a number of research and industry projects. Finally, he has more than 15 years of university-level teaching experience and he was a professor at the reputable schools in the US.
Due to this, he is qualified to teach and transfer knowledge about control engineering, robotics, and mechatronics. He has observed that on online learning platforms, online, and YouTube there are a number of tutorials on how to control DC motors using encoders and PID controllers. A large number of these tutorials present an unstructured and incomplete PID control implementation in Arduino. Namely, some PID control implementations that are presented online are based on cumbersome Arduino C implementation where all the functions and code is placed in a single file. This leads to difficult to understand and cumbersome implementation that is difficult to debug and use in complex projects. Furthermore, he has observed that some implementations of the PID controller presented online are incorrect or incomplete and should not be used in practice. Finally, it is a general impression that some people teaching control online lack the basic knowledge of control theory. He has created this video tutorial to explain the basics of control algorithms and how to correctly implement control algorithms in practice. In this tutorial, you will learn how to implement the basic PID control algorithm in disciplined and object oriented manner.

Granted, there are many not-so-great Arduino-based attempts on YT but his doesn't even get to position without that second kick. I have to question his claimed credentials.
I left the comment questions and he immediately came back with insults and was going to attack me on LinkedIn (forgot that I even had an account).

He since deleted the insults.

Our PicoMite blows this garbage away...totally

KeepIS

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Joined: 13/10/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 1828

Posted: 03:21am 27 Mar 2025

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I think you summed it up perfectly, that attitude and condescending statements on anyone commenting negatively basically says, "anyone who questions his status and design implementation will be blocked".

I felt no need to read or watch the channel from that point.

NANO Inverter: Full download - Only Hex Ver 8.1Ks

PhenixRising
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Joined: 07/11/2023
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1139

Posted: 10:18am 27 Mar 2025

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KeepIS said I think you summed it up perfectly, that attitude and condescending statements on anyone commenting negatively basically says, "anyone who questions his status and design implementation will be blocked".

I felt no need to read or watch the channel from that point.

Something not right with this guy. Here's my comment:

And so he went to my old LinkedIn and posted:

Where did I use "hurty" words?
I asked questions and he didn't answer a single one of them.

He is showing the worst performing example of a motor PID that I am able to find on YT and yet he insinuates that everyone else has got it wrong.

"Qualified to teach"

Really?

Any real/responsible designer would put safety first & foremost but this guy doesn't even mention it, let alone implement it. Motion is dangerous.

Take his awful example and apply it to say, a linear slide axis.

Should the feedback system fail due to:
1) a broken cable
2) PSU failure
3) feedback polarity out of phase with the motor (it happens)

The axis will run away at full velocity and the axis will crash spectacularly.

He has the equivalent of:

position_error = commanded_position - actual_position

motor_command = Kp * position_error

What must absolutely be (bare minimum):

position_error = commanded_position - actual_position

if abs(position_error) > safety_limit then
disable_servo
emergency_stop
else
motor_command = Kp * position_error
end if

Don't get me started on his "FPGA tutorial" where all he does is output PWM which is included in the sample code that comes with the FPGA board

CaptainBoing

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Joined: 07/09/2016
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2137

Posted: 02:32pm 27 Mar 2025

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"mummy! he called me a trapezoidals"

lizby
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Joined: 17/05/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 3309

Posted: 05:17pm 27 Mar 2025

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My, my--he's going to sic his lawyers on you. Watch out for "the authorities".

PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed

Mixtel90

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Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7499

Posted: 05:34pm 27 Mar 2025

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Unfortunately this happens. His example is right in so far as it goes, i.e. as a theoretical exercise. It's not practical in a real world situation though. He may well be qualified to teach the theory up to high school level, but he's not qualified to *design* control systems even if he thinks he can. I was a control panels designer for 41 years and even I wouldn't touch motion control systems, just as you may not want to mess with 11kV switchgear and multi-generator synchronising. :)

Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs

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