Micro Serial Servo Controller Help

Support Servo controllers and servos
1

Hi
I am a beginner in robotics and I need some help with my Micro Serial Controller. I want to use it with labview and it wasnt successfull so far. Perhaps I am sending wrong signals.

Is there any tool or program for windows which I can use to test the controller?

I have heard about the Hyperterminal in the windows accessory but this wasnt successfull too.

Thanks for any help
ThorstenM

2

It’s always nice to hear about people getting into robotics.

The kind folks at GPSBots.com have written a simple Windows application to test the Pololu serial servo controllers, which you can download here. Basically you select your com port number, click on, and you can command the servos by moving the vertical slide bars:

Now, the program was written in Microsoft Visual Basic, and if you don’t have a copy installed you might get an error message about a missing file when you try to run it. To fix this you can download and install a free version of Visual Basic, or download just the missing file and unzip it to your C:\Windows\system32\ directory. I know this part sounds a bit sketchy, but all I can say is I did it (on a couple of computers, faster than downloading and installing VB) and I haven’t had any problems.

By the way, is there a particular reason you want to use LabView?

Good luck, and let us know how things are going!

-Adam

3

Hi Adam

Thanks for the software link. I tested it and at the beginning there was the same problem as I had with labview: The servo moves in little steps and the yellow led was on all the time.
Then I read here in the forum that a weak power supply could cause such a problem if it is connected to both the servo bus and the controller. So I connceted a separate powersupply for the servo and the VB tool works. That gave me hope for another attemp with labview and now it works with labview.

The reason for using labview is that it is simple enough for me:-) I am just a beginner with simple ideas but if the ideas get more advanced I think I have to continue with other languages to write more efficient programs.

So thanks for your help and I think I will look around here more often in this forum to get some robot ideas for the future:-)

So long
ThorstenM