The VCP6 Handbook

How to read this

This document is written to be read in order, like a textbook, but each part is self-contained enough that you can jump straight to the chapter you need. It is aimed at someone who is actually building the machine, so the emphasis throughout is on why a thing behaves the way it does, and then on the specific numbers, registers, and pin names you will need at the bench.

A few things to know going in.

Register values, formulas, and pin numbers here are a starting point rather than gospel — silicon revisions, breakout-board variants, and Teensyduino core updates all move things around. Confirm anything load-bearing against the TMC2209 datasheet, the PJRC pin card, or your own board before you commit to it in hardware.

The kinematics chapters use the published PAROL6 Denavit–Hartenberg table. I have checked it numerically: the forward kinematics it produces gives a reach of about 396 mm, which agrees with the published 400 mm figure, and the wrist axes intersect as they should. Your VCP6 is a variant, though, so if you change a link length or a mounting offset you will need to re-derive rather than re-use.

And these projects usually fail on power and grounding rather than on maths or firmware, which is why Chapter 6 spends a section on it.