Lynxmotion Tech Support

Try attaching two servos to the pins the Sabertooth is connected to. You will need to jumper that block of 4 I/O pins to VS. Then run the program again. When you start it the two servos should be centered. As you press the buttons they should nudge one direction or the other. This would be a good test for the BotBoard II and Atom processor.

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Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...

Hey Robot Dude...quick question. I havent tried your suggestion yet but this morning before I was going to, I was checking each motor separately with 6v to see if they had power which they did. On the last motor I accidently clipped part of the capacitor lead on it. I am still able to thread the capacitor lead through the terminal its just shorter now. Im sure thats not going to cause any problems with the motor, right? If it does do you guys sell them in packs? Anyways...I plan on trying out your suggestion later on today. Thanks.

The truth is those motors do not draw enough current, and are not "noisy" enough to even use the caps. We put them in because people are used to having caps on motors, but practically they are not required. We don't sell them separately, sorry...

_________________
Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...

I have two Sabertooth units to work with on this project because on the first one I was not able to get a green power Status1 light and I thought there was a short in the Ch1/Ch2 wires because the motors were acting how they are now. Anyways...I did attach two servos to the pins the Sabertooth is connected to (8,9,10,11). I was a little confused when you said I will need to jumper that block of 4 I/O pins to VS. I took two pics of placing the jumper in two different positions and they both responded the way that you described. I ran the program again, heard the four ascending notes,Sabertooth did have a green Status1 light and the two servos did have a center position. When I pressed the buttons they did nudge one direction or the other, but the motors did not respond to the "A" and "C " buttons. I also noticed the Sabertooth with the green Status 1 light did not glow brightly when I pressed the buttons even though the servos were responding. The other Sabertooth with no green Status 1 light acted the same as the first one except I could hear a very faint quiet clicking noise. I had to put my ear up to it, but it is there. I took two pics of the BotBoardII and was wondering which one is correct as far as the jumper placement. So does this mean that the BBII and the Sabertooth are at least sending/receiving signals? If so why are the motors not responding to the buttons? Any ideas?
Thanks.

The jumpers place either 5vdc from the regulator or the raw servo battery voltage (VS) to the power pins on that 4 row section. When you are powering servos you use VS, when you are powering sensors and stuff you use 5vdc.

If you're in the mood for pictures can you take some images of the Sabertooth wiring?

_________________
Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...

Here is one pic of the Sabertooth still connected to the Bot Board. Is it too blurry for you and need a clearer picture? You can see the Status1 light on, the two channels on the bottom are Ch1/Ch2 and the top is Flip. Im looking at the Dip Switch upside down so they are in the correct position as described in Step 5/Fig. 5. The black wire underneath the switch is the battery quick connect cable. Now when you mean pics of the wiring do you want me to completely take it of the chassis and lay it out also? No biggie if you need a clearer pic and take it out of the chassis. I also received the elbow servo today that was causing the shaking of my arm last week. I will also look at that to see if that was the problem.

Thanks for the picture. You don't need to remove it from the chassis. But I would like to see all the wires. Are you sure you have the dual 6vdc battery wired up properly for 12vdc?

_________________
Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...

Hi I took a better pic of the Sabertooth to show the two 6v batteries wired for 12vdc using the battery quick connect cable according to http://www.lynxmotion.com/images/html/build122.htm step 11. Im pretty sure its connected properly the Status1 light is green. I went ahead and ran the Tank Mode Test again with two servos like you suggested earlier. It was the same outcome of the servos responding to the "A" and "C" buttons but the motors did not. Also as before the Status1 green light did not glow brightly when I pressed the buttons. Like I mentioned earlier I received the elbow servo and installed it which did correct the shaking problem of my arm. I ran the arm through Lynxterm to make sure each servo is working and aligned properly, ALL=1500.
Ok ready for a new situation? Im getting close to completing this tutorial. I went ahead and decided to work on http://www.lynxmotion.com/images/html/build148.htm step 11-14. Before I ran the program I made sure Baud Rate is 9600, Im using the correct COM port, No Flow, and Disconnect. I turned on the Sabertooth and Bot Board and ran the program. Now for some reason as the program is running the motors continuously run. Im wondering if this means that my motors are at 100% power from step 7. Also during the servo offset the buttons are lit up but do not make a tone pitch when I press the "B" button, but I do see the servos move. I havent looked into the problem as far as the speaker being enabled. Im just glad the motors are running but should they be during the whole program? One thing I was thinking of to see if the "A" and "C" buttons are working is step 14 but Im a little confused about how to get the offset servo information after I run the cycle. Do you think that would help? As always if you need pics I can take some.
Thanks again for the help.

Ok there's no point in trying to guess what behavior should be right... We need to go back to the Sabertooth test. That's what it was designed for. To make sure the Sabertooth is perfect before moving on. At this point it's looking like the Sabertooth is faulty. One last thing to test. Disconnect the motors from the Sabertooth and power them directly from the battery. Make sure the leads on the caps are not shorting on the case of the motor. If the servos work in place of the Sabertooth, and the motors work from the same battery powering the Sabertooth, then the Sabertooth must be bad. Dimension Engineering can replace it directly if that is the case.

_________________
Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...

Im not too sure what you mean when you said disconnecting the motors from the Sabertooth. Do you mean the pos. and neg. from the Sabertooth or the pos. and neg. from each motor? When you said power them directly from the battery do you mean the 12vdc or the 6v from the Bot Board?Do you also want me to keep Ch1/Ch.2 plugged into the Bot Board? When you said If the servos work in place of the Sabertooth...in place of what? Also when you said and the motors work from the same battery powering the Sabertooth are you talking about the 12vdc? One last thing Im sure I run the program during this time. If the Sabertooth is bad Dimension Engineering will still replace it even though I purchased it through Lynxmotion? I still have the order form, bought it back in June. Sorry for all the questions, but Im learning as I go along. I'll probably wait on your reply to try out your suggestion just to make sure I get it right.
Thanks.

Disconnect the motors from the Sabertooth. The structure of the sentence implies you are pulling the motor wires out of the Sabertooth.



They are 12vdc motors. So you can connect the wires to the 12vdc battery to see them rotate.



For the above tests it doesn't matter.



I'm referring to earlier when you plugged the servos into the Bot Board II where the Sabertooth was plugged in to test the outputs.



Yes. Trying to make a motor rotate would be a good test to see if the 12vdc battery was not dead.



Huh?



DE makes the part. You can send it to me or to them for replacement.

_________________
Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...

Oh ok...it makes more sense now for me when you had to break it down sentence by sentence, lol. Anyways... I did disconnect the motor wires from the Sabertooth and connected them to the 12vdc battery and they did rotate without any problems. The two servos still work in place of the Sabertooth. When I power up the Bot Board they do twitch and respond to the "A" and "C" buttons. I had Ch1/Ch2 plugged in also if that matters but I did not get a response. So after this test Im assuming the Sabertooth is bad and I'll go ahead and send it in with my order number for a replacement. I also forwarded the order number to your support email to get the RMA number that I need. If you need more info/something else for me to do let me know.
I appreciate the help with all this, boy was it a headache

Good morning...right quick with all these tests that we ran on the Sabertooth do you have any ideas what might be wrong with it? If not...could I call DE and ask them.Im just curious.

I would encourage you to contact them for support. I have done everything I can do on this end. It truly looks to be dead to me.

_________________
Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...

Hello Im back. I just wanted to give you an update on what happened with the Sabertooth. I spoke with Dim. Eng. and they replaced it with no problems. I worked on the Tank Mode Test program this morning and the motors ran fine. I do have a couple of questions for you.

You know on Ch1/Ch2 you have to take out the red wire I noticed on my Sabertooth the other two wires are a little loose (blk/org) in their output plug. When I first ran the program it was doing the same thing as before and I couldnt believe it When I took a closer look at the plug is when I noticed that the blk/org wires are a little loose. So when I slightly push them in the plug while running the program no problems at all. I just have to figure out a way to keep them securely in place from now on. I dont think its that big of a deal, but if you have any ideas to them in place thats cool.

Well...while I was waiting for my Sabertooth I was working on my arm with RIOS and you know before I can do that I have to modify the arm 30 degrees in the arm assembly which I did and also calibrated the arm in RIOS. Now my question is back to the tutorial http://www.lynxmotion.com/images/html/build148.htm moving on to Step 11 Servo/Motor Control Calibration. Going through the program and finding the offsets Step 13 says place the robot in a position as close to neutral as possible, and turn it on. The robot should go to and hold the neutral position, and should resemble figure 13, which is 90 degrees. If the joints are off by more than 15� you may have made an error in assembly. If Im not mistaking its not going to be at 90 degrees its going to be at the modifications that I made for RIOS, correct? If so do I continue with this tutorial first and make it 90 degrees and then start back up with RIOS again?

One more question after I make it wireless will my robot run by the Bot Board II and not SSC-32. I was just wondering because Ive been using the SSC-32 for RIOS. I noticed in the manual V1.06 Ch. 8 it talks about the Basic Atom 24 and Bot Board. Is this where I make my modifications? I also found this in the forum viewtopic.php?t=2401. Is this something to consider also?
Thanks.