Problems communicating with Bot Board II(Atom )

Lynxmotion Electronics & Software
1

I’m fairly new to robots, and I’m having trouble getting my computer to communicate with the Atom 28 chip. I can get the computer(laptop, Toshiba Satellite) to communicate with the SSC-32 board, using a USB-serial connection. The cable I’m using is an IOGEAR cable recommended by LynxMotion and it’s going thru a powered USB hub(100 mA)

I’m using COM 7 to connect to a Bot Board II, when I try to program using the IDE, the speaker chirps, and the green LED light is on(and stays on) but the message comes back that it can’t find the connection, chip or anything. currently I’m using 38.4 baud, data bits = 8, Parity = none, stop bit = 1, flow control = none, the FIFO buffers are set to 14(I’ve tried setting them to 1,2, 4, and 8, with no luck) I’m using a 6 V battery to power this and it’s configured to power the SSC board with the Bot Board drawing power from the SSC.

So far I haven’t been able to get any programming code to download to the chip. The code is compiling correctly and everything seems to be right. At this point I can’t figure out anything else to do, so any help is greatly appreciated.

2

The SSC-32 is not as timing intensive as programming an atom. There could be a problem with the Bot Board 2 or Atom 28 chip as well.

I’m not aware of any baudrate setting within the Atom IDE. As far as baud rate setting go you should select the highest value available where ever you are adjusting them.

What version of the IDE are you using?

If you have not been successful in programming the Atom then I’m assuming it still has the factory test code in it. If this is the case you should here a constant clicking with the speaker enabled. Do you hear this? If so it’s a good thing.

Do you have access to a different PC? Even temporarily. This would tell us if it’s a problem with the Bot Board 2 / Atom 28, or the IDE on the Vista Laptop.

Here is the new serial port troubleshooting page I wrote up a few days ago.
lynxmotion.net/viewtopic.php?t=4702

We will figure this out!

3

the problem turned out to be the baud rate, it needs to be set to 115.2
I also had to set the Reset Hold Time had to be set to 10
and I had to plug the battery directly into the Bot Board. it needed the full 6 volts.

4

Glad you got it going! 8) To better help others who may encounter this problem in the future, where did you change this baud rate setting?

5

I changed it on the com port on my computer. The manufacturer said the chip is set at 115.2 and you can’t change that. it’s a different baud rate than what the SSC used. and I think that was the major problem.

also I think directly connecting the battery to the bot board rather than thru the SSC board helped.