Saving Configuration (Backing Up, Restoring, and Erasing)
Save the Configuration
If you have an ODrive configuration that you are satisfied with (GPIO settings, velocity/current limits, etc.), then you can save your settings onto the ODrive board itself. This makes it so that when you reboot the ODrive, your settings/configuration persist in memory.
For the most part, you will not have to write any scripts that deal with saving the configuration directly, so you can simply use odrivetool to work with your configuration.
In odrivetool, save your configuration by running
odrvX.save_configuration()
Now, anytime you turn off your ODrive it will turn back on with the configuration you have saved.
Backup the Configuration
If you have a configuration that you want to save to a file (for example to keep on GitHub or share with others), you can use the backup feature of odrivetool. To save the configuration to a file, open your terminal and run
odrivetool backup-config <my_config_filename>.json
Replace <my_config_filename> with your desired filename. Make sure to keep the .json extension. Feel free to open the file that stores your configuration. What do you notice? Here is a brief intro to JSON files to help make sense of all the text you see in the config backup file.
Restore the Configuration
A configuration backup would be pretty useless if we have no way to load a configuration file onto the ODrive. To do so, open your terminal and run
odrivetool restore-config <my_config_filename>.json
Make sure to designate the full filepath to your JSON file (e.g. /home/soft-dev/Documents/my_config.json). At this point, your configuration backup will be restored and saved to the ODrive.
Erase the Configuration
If you are starting development on a new ODrive, chances are that it has a configuration that is not compatible with your motor setup. To start from scratch, open odrivetool and erase the existing configuration with
odrvX.erase_configuration()
Since you are now starting at the default settings, the ODrive will not be recognizing your brake resistor. Ensure that
odrvX.config.enable_brake_resistor == True
Lastly, erasing the configuration does not save the default settings to the ODrive. To keep the default settings after rebooting, save your configuration.
odrvX.save_configuration()
Now you can start developing your ODrive application starting from the default configuration.