pykinisi

Python package for kinisi motor controller. This package is used to control the kinisi motor controller via serial interface.
Description of the commands can be found in Kinisi Motion Controller framework documentation

This version uses messages API 2.1.0, which is incompatible with API 1.x firmware and clients. Connecting exchanges board identity and completes clock setup before returning. See initialization, time sync, and errors for details.

Installation

Install pykinisi with pip:

pip install pykinisi

Controlling Single Motor

This example shows how to connect to the motor controller and control a single motor.\

import time
from pykinisi import *

port = "COM3"

controller = KinisiController()
if not controller.connect(port):
    print(f"Can't connect to {port}: {controller.last_error}")
    exit()

# Motor test
motor_index = MotorIndex.Motor0
speed = 40 # Signed PWM value, -840..840

# Is motor reversed 
is_reversed = False
 
try:
    controller.initialize_motor(motor_index, is_reversed)
    # Set motor speed to speed
    controller.set_motor_speed(motor_index, speed)
    time.sleep(5)
finally:
    try:
        controller.stop_motor(motor_index)
    finally:
        controller.disconnect()

More Examples

There are several examples in the examples folder which show how to use the pykinisi package to control the kinisi motor controller.
Run the examples with:

cd examples
python <example_file> <serial_port>

Initialization.py reports board identity and clock status without enabling motors. Use python Initialization.py <serial_port> --uptime when the host has no valid wall clock.

Package Development

Install pykinisi for development:

pip install -e .

Update KinisiCommands.py file:

cd tools
python update-commands.py --schema ../../kinisi-motor-controller-firmware/commands.json

The command above uses a sibling firmware checkout. Use --branch=<firmware-branch> to fetch a firmware branch containing the API v2 schema instead.

Run tests from the project root with python -m unittest discover -s tests.

Links

• Kinisi Motion Controller firmware
• Kinisi Motion Controller hardware
• JavaScipt package for kinisi motor controller
• Python package for kinisi motor controller