A question

Robotics and electronics discussion Miscellaneous
1

I am trying to program the micro dual motor controller with my Athena chip from kronosrobotics.com. I hooked up the motors, power supply, dual motor controller and the athena correctly. However, I believe I am having problems with the programming itself. Here’s the Program I am using:

output 0 'Set I/O Port 0 to Output Mode
output 1 'Set I/O port 1 to Output Mode
high 0 'Set I/O Port High Serout port

'Reset Pololu
low 1 'Set I/O Port Low
high 1 'Set I/O Port High
pause 100 'pololu startup time

setbaud SBAUD9600 'Sets Baud Mode to 9600

serout 0,128,2,2 '$80 converts to Dec 128, Send data out

Here are my two problems:

  1. When I run the program one motor goes on, then it stops, then there’s a buzzing noise in the motors.

  2. I seem to only get one motor running. Just one motor and not the other.

2

Hello,

It looks like you are sending the wrong data. The typical command packet has four bytes, and the first two are always 128 and then 0. The next two bytes set the motor number, direction, and speed.

The packet you are sending is a “reconfigure motor ID” command, which causes your motor controller to change the motor numbers to which it replies and then confirm the action by briefly pulsing one of the motors according to the new motor IDs.

You can get more information about using the motor controller and changing its motor IDs in the user’s guide available online; you can also check our sample projects to see how to interface to the motor controller. The second sample project, which uses a BASIC Stamp, should be especially helpful.

- Jan