Roboclaw not shown in motion studio

Support Motor controllers/drivers and motors
1

Hi.
The roboclaw that I have is the 2x15 version with USB and it is version 4.

I installed the usb driver and from what I see in device manager, roboclaw is set to COM3

When I open Motion Studio it does not recognize any roboclaw version.The roboclaw does not show up in motion studio so I can’t connect to it.
I even tried a legacy version of motion studio and still the same thing. I also tried different usb ports and cables but still it is recognized as COM3 but not shown in motion studio.

Any help on this would be great

2

Hello.

I am sorry to hear you are having trouble with your RoboClaw. It is not immediately obvious to us what might be going wrong, and it is rare for us to hear reports of the RoboClaws behaving like this. So, I recommend reaching out to the manufacturer, Basicmicro, for support directly. From our experience Basicmicro is good about replying and resolving issues with their products quickly, but please contact us with your order information and a reference to this thread if they do not get back to you within a few days.

- Patrick

3

It has been a few days since I emailed basicmicro, still waiting for a reply. Hope to get one soon.
Thanks for chiming in.

4

Well, final I solved the problem.

My board was an old version (V4). It seems that somehow the settings in the board’s eeprom got corrupted and although the board was recognized by the windows driver it was not recognized by the Basicmicro motion studio software. The newest version of the software did not have support for the board that I had.

I downloaded a legacy version of the software and still nothing showed up. The trick was to put the board in bootloader mode. Once the board was in bootloader mode the legacy motion studio detected the board, and I could reflash the board with a fresh firmware. That was it. After the firmware update the board showed up when opening motion studio and you can connect to it.

To go into bootloader mode, press and hold the “mode” button and power on the board. At least that is how it is with my board. The leds on the board will continuously flash in sequence and the board is in bootloader mode.

2 Likes
5

I am glad to hear that you got it working! Thank you for sharing your solution.

- Patrick

6

Hello,

I have the same issue, the board is detected as “Communication Device Class ASF example (COM4)”, but Motion Studio does not see it.

I tried to download the legacy version, but it points to an outdated link, same for the 1.0.0.64 http://downloads.basicmicro.com/software/Legacy/BasicmicroMotionStudio_1.0.0.75.zip

Moreover, there is no clear way to put the board into bootloader mode since :

This RoboClaw is version V6B . The main change from the previous version is the configuration pushbuttons have been removed, and all configuration must now be done through software.

So I presume that if it is not possible to put the board into bootloader mode through the software, I will need to short some pins on the MCU…

I tried to dig around the installation files to see if there is some kind of CLI, or anything else I could deduce, but it did not get me too far :smiley:

I have written to the Basic Micro support not long ago, so I will wait for a response, but in the meantime, if you can provide some help, I would be grateful:slight_smile:

7

Hello, @thommas.

Unfortunately, I do not have any immediate suggestions for what else you could try yourself, so it would probably be best to wait until you hear back from Basicmicro. Keep in mind that they might be busier and slower to respond than usual due to the holiday and shopping season, but as I suggested to tolis earlier in the thread, please contact us with your order information and a reference to this thread if they do not get back to you within a few days.

- Patrick

8

Is the legacy versions available anywhere? Motion Studio is tell me to download the legacy version but I can’t find it anywhere.

9

Hello, @NUprops

I took a look around the Basicmicro website and could not find an obvious way to download older versions of Motion Studio, so I suggest directing that question to them, or maybe @thommas can post a follow up when he gets a response. Please let me know if you have any trouble getting support from Basicmicro directly.

- Patrick

10

I heard back from them. Posting the link so others have access if they need it.

https://downloads.basicmicro.com/software/BMStudio_1.0.0.75/setup.exe

1 Like
11

Hello,

We have 9 hours of time difference with the support, so I get only one message a day. :smiley:
For now, no solution has been provided.

Observations are :

  • The board is revision V6G.
  • The USB details in the Device Manager seem to be normal. (Properties → Details → Bus reported device description = “USB Roboclaw 2x7A”)
  • Latest Basic Micro Studio version, and 1.0.0.75 provided in the link above did not change anything.
  • “Power cycling” while maintaining the device plugged via USB did not affect anything (it’s not USB powered)

However, I did a sanity check on another PC, and the board connected without any driver update to the software. I guess there is some issue with the driver/software interface…
I took the opportunity to update the firmware from 4.2.8 to 4.4.3, but same story on the first PC. (Windows 10 on both PC).

I’ll let you know if I have more information coming from the support at Basicmicro, or if I find the exact culprit. But it is very probably, like always, the drivers (other times it’s the power :slight_smile: )