Here is one pic of the Sabertooth still connected to the Bot Board. Is it too blurry for you and need a clearer picture? You can see the Status1 light on, the two channels on the bottom are Ch1/Ch2 and the top is Flip. Im looking at the Dip Switch upside down so they are in the correct position as described in Step 5/Fig. 5. The black wire underneath the switch is the battery quick connect cable. Now when you mean pics of the wiring do you want me to completely take it of the chassis and lay it out also? No biggie if you need a clearer pic and take it out of the chassis. I also received the elbow servo today that was causing the shaking of my arm last week. I will also look at that to see if that was the problem.
Thanks for the picture. You don’t need to remove it from the chassis. But I would like to see all the wires. Are you sure you have the dual 6vdc battery wired up properly for 12vdc?
Hi I took a better pic of the Sabertooth to show the two 6v batteries wired for 12vdc using the battery quick connect cable according to lynxmotion.com/images/html/build122.htm step 11. Im pretty sure its connected properly the Status1 light is green. I went ahead and ran the Tank Mode Test again with two servos like you suggested earlier. It was the same outcome of the servos responding to the “A” and “C” buttons but the motors did not. Also as before the Status1 green light did not glow brightly when I pressed the buttons. Like I mentioned earlier I received the elbow servo and installed it which did correct the shaking problem of my arm. I ran the arm through Lynxterm to make sure each servo is working and aligned properly, ALL=1500.
Ok ready for a new situation? Im getting close to completing this tutorial. I went ahead and decided to work on lynxmotion.com/images/html/build148.htm step 11-14. Before I ran the program I made sure Baud Rate is 9600, Im using the correct COM port, No Flow, and Disconnect. I turned on the Sabertooth and Bot Board and ran the program. Now for some reason as the program is running the motors continuously run. Im wondering if this means that my motors are at 100% power from step 7. Also during the servo offset the buttons are lit up but do not make a tone pitch when I press the “B” button, but I do see the servos move. I havent looked into the problem as far as the speaker being enabled. Im just glad the motors are running but should they be during the whole program? One thing I was thinking of to see if the “A” and “C” buttons are working is step 14 but Im a little confused about how to get the offset servo information after I run the cycle. Do you think that would help? As always if you need pics I can take some.
Thanks again for the help.
Ok there’s no point in trying to guess what behavior should be right… We need to go back to the Sabertooth test. That’s what it was designed for. To make sure the Sabertooth is perfect before moving on. At this point it’s looking like the Sabertooth is faulty. One last thing to test. Disconnect the motors from the Sabertooth and power them directly from the battery. Make sure the leads on the caps are not shorting on the case of the motor. If the servos work in place of the Sabertooth, and the motors work from the same battery powering the Sabertooth, then the Sabertooth must be bad. Dimension Engineering can replace it directly if that is the case.
Im not too sure what you mean when you said disconnecting the motors from the Sabertooth. Do you mean the pos. and neg. from the Sabertooth or the pos. and neg. from each motor? When you said power them directly from the battery do you mean the 12vdc or the 6v from the Bot Board?Do you also want me to keep Ch1/Ch.2 plugged into the Bot Board? When you said If the servos work in place of the Sabertooth…in place of what? Also when you said and the motors work from the same battery powering the Sabertooth are you talking about the 12vdc? One last thing Im sure I run the program during this time. If the Sabertooth is bad Dimension Engineering will still replace it even though I purchased it through Lynxmotion? I still have the order form, bought it back in June. Sorry for all the questions, but Im learning as I go along. I’ll probably wait on your reply to try out your suggestion just to make sure I get it right.
Thanks.
Disconnect the motors from the Sabertooth. The structure of the sentence implies you are pulling the motor wires out of the Sabertooth.
They are 12vdc motors. So you can connect the wires to the 12vdc battery to see them rotate.
For the above tests it doesn’t matter.
I’m referring to earlier when you plugged the servos into the Bot Board II where the Sabertooth was plugged in to test the outputs.
Yes. Trying to make a motor rotate would be a good test to see if the 12vdc battery was not dead.
Huh? 
DE makes the part. You can send it to me or to them for replacement.
Oh ok…it makes more sense now for me when you had to break it down sentence by sentence, lol. Anyways… I did disconnect the motor wires from the Sabertooth and connected them to the 12vdc battery and they did rotate without any problems. The two servos still work in place of the Sabertooth. When I power up the Bot Board they do twitch and respond to the “A” and “C” buttons. I had Ch1/Ch2 plugged in also if that matters but I did not get a response. So after this test Im assuming the Sabertooth is bad and I’ll go ahead and send it in with my order number for a replacement. I also forwarded the order number to your support email to get the RMA number that I need. If you need more info/something else for me to do let me know.
I appreciate the help with all this, boy was it a headache 
Good morning…right quick with all these tests that we ran on the Sabertooth do you have any ideas what might be wrong with it? If not…could I call DE and ask them.Im just curious. 
I would encourage you to contact them for support. I have done everything I can do on this end. It truly looks to be dead to me.
Hello Im back. I just wanted to give you an update on what happened with the Sabertooth. I spoke with Dim. Eng. and they replaced it with no problems. I worked on the Tank Mode Test program this morning and the motors ran fine. I do have a couple of questions for you.
You know on Ch1/Ch2 you have to take out the red wire I noticed on my Sabertooth the other two wires are a little loose (blk/org) in their output plug. When I first ran the program it was doing the same thing as before and I couldnt believe it When I took a closer look at the plug is when I noticed that the blk/org wires are a little loose. So when I slightly push them in the plug while running the program no problems at all. I just have to figure out a way to keep them securely in place from now on. I dont think its that big of a deal, but if you have any ideas to them in place thats cool.
Well…while I was waiting for my Sabertooth I was working on my arm with RIOS and you know before I can do that I have to modify the arm 30 degrees in the arm assembly which I did and also calibrated the arm in RIOS. Now my question is back to the tutorial lynxmotion.com/images/html/build148.htm moving on to Step 11 Servo/Motor Control Calibration. Going through the program and finding the offsets Step 13 says place the robot in a position as close to neutral as possible, and turn it on. The robot should go to and hold the neutral position, and should resemble figure 13, which is 90 degrees. If the joints are off by more than 15� you may have made an error in assembly. If Im not mistaking its not going to be at 90 degrees its going to be at the modifications that I made for RIOS, correct? If so do I continue with this tutorial first and make it 90 degrees and then start back up with RIOS again?
One more question after I make it wireless will my robot run by the Bot Board II and not SSC-32. I was just wondering because Ive been using the SSC-32 for RIOS. I noticed in the manual V1.06 Ch. 8 it talks about the Basic Atom 24 and Bot Board. Is this where I make my modifications? I also found this in the forum viewtopic.php?t=2401. Is this something to consider also?
Thanks.
You could replace the cables, but beyond that, I don’t know how to fix the cables you have.
The modification is only required for using RIOS. If you are not using RIOS you must put the elbow back to 90°.
RIOS allows you to create a program for the Basic Atom that essentially replaces the PC. It will send the same commands the PC was sending for a particular project. This is generally considered a fixed arm system, I.e. the arm is stationary… The tutorial you are following is to make the arm work as a remote control manipulator on the 4WD Rover, a mobile platform. It has no association with RIOS.
So close to finishing this tutorial, Im finally on the last step. I didnt have any problems with the servo offset program, it ran according to fig. 12. One thing I noticed and I dont know if this is a coincidence but I didnt need to make any adjustments and my values are exactly as Table 15-1. I ran the program a couple of times with the same results. Is this something I should be concerned about? Now on to my next problem…
Step 13 says place the robot in a position as close to neutral as possible, and turn it on. The robot should go to and hold the neutral position of 90 degrees and it did with no problems, very pleased about that. Step 15 says open the rover file so I can place my servo values but when I run the program the A, B, C buttons all light up with a high pitch tone and my robot goes from 90 degrees to the RIOS calibrated default position. I went back to Lynxterm to check out my servos by clicking on ALL=1500 and my arm was at 90 degrees. I know in your previous post you mentioned the modification I made is only required for using RIOS. This is where Im stuck at now. Have any suggestions?
Because my arm goes back to the default RIOS position, should I go to RIOS and make the default positon 90 degrees now? Thanks.
I made two videos. First one is of the offset servo program and the second one is the rover file program. The clips that you see in the rover file video is a temporary fix on the loose CH1/Ch2 wires that I mentioned in my previous post.
Hi Ive been working on my problem with the rover program with at least one result. I entered my servo results etc. but as I scrolled down to the MIN/MAX angles I thought maybe I could work on these degrees to get the 90 degree default position. I kept the base the same and I changed the shoulder to a different degree which did work. It took a couple of tries but the shoulder is vertical now instead of the RIOS default. Do you think I should continue with changing the degrees on the rest of the arm? Also in step 17 when it says a series of beeps in my video, if you hear them, is that the correct sound they are supposed to be?
Thanks.
Hi,
It seems like an old post but did you fixed this?
I’ve noticed that you’ve got the jumpers for the leds/buttons installed like it says in the tutorial. As I remember it correctly you should remove the jumpers marked with nr 2
Xan
You do realize the shoulder and elbow servos, being digital, will turn on and hold whatever position they were at when you apply power right…
There is no reason to change anything in the program. If you connect LynxTerm and click all=1500 and the forearm is horizontal, there is no reason to change anything mechanical or in the program. I’m willing to help you to the end, but I’m not getting involved if you are changing the program on the tutorials.
The series of beeps you were hearing is because the PS2 controller and the Atom are not communicating properly. The LEDs on the PS2 receiver are also blinking, right? The beeps should only happen a couple times. For a test you can connect the PS2 controller to a PS2 game console. Also you can try connecting ONLY the power to the receiver, leave the 4 conductor plug unconnected, and see if the LEDs will go on steady. This removes the Atom from the picture.
Hi Xan. Looking at my Bot Board I didnt see any jumpers marked nr2. The closest thing that came to that was the “A” button which was marked with R2 and above it was R6. Is that what you mean? I went ahead and removed it, ran the program with the same results as before. My shoulder is still vertical and rest of the arm slants all the way down, beeps are still the same.
Xan is referring to the jumpers marked with a red number 2 in the diagram he posted. You are to remove the jumpers that are outlined in blue on the diagram.
I understand Robot Dude. Any unnecessary changes that I made to the program I will change back. The suggestions that you gave me and from now on I will work on to see what happens.
Thanks. 
The jumpers which are connected to the buttons/leds A, B and C need to be removed. I added a image to my previous post to show you where they are located. The buttons/leds are connected to the same pins as the PS2 receiver. They can interfere with the remote. Once the jumpers are removed turn it on and hit the ‘select’ button. This will switch from driving mode to arm mode and you should be able to move the arm.
Hope it help
xan
Ok…before I started back up on step 17 I did check to see if the LEDs on the PS2 were blinking and they were not. Looking closely at it, the Controller Cable was plugged in correctly to the Bot Board and believe it or not I had the Controller Receiver plugged in upside down into the Cable When I corrected this problem and ran the program there was a series of beeps that lasted a few seconds, not constant like before, and the Receiver green light keeps blinking and the red light stays on (not blinking). Also, the A, B, C LEDs stay on. Is it correct to have the Receiver green light blinking and the red one stays on? Just wondering if I missed anything now. I know Im jumping ahead of myself but will I eventually use this lynxmotion.com/images/html/build034.htm
Thanks.