I’m trying to control a pololu microservo using a Basic Stamp and a servocontroller, but I’m having trouble with the code.
I’m having trouble with getting the communication and with getting the servo to turn. I’m sure it’s something easy, but does anyone have a project that they can share with some code?
In short, going from the Basic Stamp to the controller isn’t getting me the results I need (the green light), and thus, I can’t get the servo to turn.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks - Mike
Hello.
Have you looked at the “Using the Pololu Servo Controller with the BASIC Stamp 2” document under the resources tab?
- Jan
Yes, and that’s not working for us very well. We cannot get the Basic Stamp to communicate “enough” to get the servocontroller to turn the servo. This has become very frustrating for us.
From the basic stamp, we are using outputs 12 - 15 as outputs to the servocontroller. From there, it goes to the microservos. We have used the sample program from the resources tab, and that doesn’t work.
Are we supposed to use those servo outputs to go into the servocontroller, or is there another output that we should use?
This is so frustrating - in my mind, this should work. But…
Thanks - Mike
I have found part of the problem - I hadn’t powered both the microservocontroller and the servo motor itself. That seems to be part of the problem - the problem now is the red light that tells me that there is a failure somewhere, perhaps the serial input.
What next?
You need to figure out what is causing the problem. For example, you can send one byte at a time to get a better indication of when the problem occurs. You should also get things working with the serial transmitter utility. Now that you are powering the board, does that work?
- Jan
The red light comes on immediately - before I send any data at all.
What jumpers do I need to have on, if any?
Thanks - Mike
You should really try to be more rigorous and systematic in your approach, both with what you do and what you post. For instance, I don’t think you have even specified which servo controller you’re talking about. Do you understand what the jumper(s) do? In general, you should keep simplifying your system until you get your expected behavior. If the red LED comes on before you think you’re sending anything, try disconnecting the serial input. In that case, our discussion would be more about why your servo controller powers up in an error state. If disconnecting the connection makes the problem go away, that would be an indication that you are actually sending something to the servo controller that you don’t know about. If that does turn out to be the case, you should simplify the code to the minimum, and if it’s still not working, you should post that code with a description of what is happening.
- Jan