I was testing yesterday my MiniMaestro connected to Arduino (nano) and after a couple of problems with the wires I was able to run the basic example… the maestro and the servos is powered by a LiPo pack and the nano has its own battery.
After moving some servos and reading the current position of the channels I unplugged the LiPo and notice that the yellow and red LED on the Maestro were ON… When I connected back the Maestro the Arduino was able to keep running the servos and as soon as I reset the Arduino the Error LED clearout, is this normal on the Maestro or it’s because I’m using the softwareserial library for the interface between the two (pin 11 and 12)?
So far I have being powering the Maestro first and then the Arduino and doing the inverse to power off my project.
The issue you are describing is not a normal occurrence with the Maestro and it has nothing to do with using the SoftwareSerial library. When you disconnect the power from the Maestro before the Arduino while the Arduino is still sending signals to it, the Maestro will draw some power through its serial line. The Arduino’s TX line alone will not provide enough voltage or current to properly power the Maestro. It is generally a good idea to power components in your system before applying any signals to avoid the possibility of damaging them. Powering off your Arduino first and powering it on last is the proper way to shut down and power up your system, respectively.
Thanks… I was thinking exactly that, I’m going to put a delay off 5 seconds on the start so I have enough time to turn on the Arduino and then power the Maestro so I can run the whole routine without problems!
