Atom Pro IDE finds Atom and starts loading program but quits

Lynxmotion Electronics & Software
1

I’m trying to load my hex program onto my ABB and Atom Pro 28.

I’m going nuts.

I tried searching other solutions and tried everything.

I tried with 8.0.0.0 and now am using 8.0.1.0 IDE.
Made sure the timeout was 25.

I can open the program and click program. Sometimes it gets to 20% sometimes 100%. But in the end it stops and says “Error:cannot connect to Atom. Operation completed successfully.” It compiles and tokonizes and everything. but for some reason stops.

I’m giving the VL 12V, VL=VS pumper on. Using a serial cable to my serial port on a Gateway Media PC.

It does detect the atom. But it won’t finish programming.

The Serial connection worked fine for setting up the SSC-32 in PowerPod.

I’m not getting this? Am I missing something guys?

Admin EDIT: I grabbed the solution from the 4th page and am pasting it in here…

WOW, MAJOR UPDATE. I figured it out. Well not really but I figured out how to make it work.

There were 2 things that were causing problems and after eliminating both, it works now!!!

First I started changing resources for my com port and testing different configurations. Some change but nothing major.

This is using just the serial port on the back of the computer, no adapter.

Then I checked the power mapping on my USB ports like kurte said.
Now I have 8 USB ports on the back of my machine and 4 on the front. Each port is configured with 500mah of available power. Now the front 4 USB ports wire into the motherboard but it turns out that those 4 SHARE power with 4 on the back. So When I checked the power settings, my gamepad controller was using 450mah plugged into the front and video capture box was using 500mAh. Which would explain why my video capture wasn’t working every now and then. Probably anytime my gamepad was plugged in. Different problem, also now solved.

So I disconnected every USB device from my system except the keyboard and mouse. All the power requirements were 0mAh except 100mah for the keyboard and mouse.

Didn’t think it could possibly be related but tried the Atom Pro IDE anyways. Bang, she programs all the way through past 100% and now hangs up at 50% verification. Tried about 10 times, always made it through programming, which it never did before, but hung up around the middle of verifying. NOW I’m getting somewhere.

Next, I looked at my Fifo buffers on the serial port more closely. Turns out that the 2 buffer sliders aren’t equal. Set on low they’re both on 1. but on high, the receive buffer is 14 and the transmit buffer is 16. now when you move the sliders to any one of the 3 preset “notches”, the transmit and receive values are always 1 off from each other.

So I slid the receive buffer to a value of 4. And instead of visually matching the bottom slider I moved it back a hair so it had a value of 4 instead of 5, where it wanted to snap to.

So now the sliders were off but the values matched.

Went into the Atom Pro IDE. Now my atom beeps when I click “Find Atom” Hit program and it scoots through programming and zips through verifying then bang, she’s done and the Atom give me a friendly beep to let me know at the end.

So I don’t understand how overloaded USB power can effect my Serial port or why the Fifo buffer sliders are not equal but if you set them equal it will work. I also tried with the Fifo buffers on 14 and 14, and 8 and 8. Works perfect. But at 1 and 1 or any other “snapped” positions (7 and 8, 12 and 14, etc.) it won’t work.

Hope this makes sense to you guys. Thanks for all the help guys. I learned alot about my USB and Serial setting through this and thanks to you guys.

IT WORKS!!!
IT WORKS!!!
IT WORKS!!!
IT WORKS!!!

2

Try the 8.0.13.0 beta. There should be a link to it in the 8.0.13.0 thread.

I see this sort of behavior also. I have to use the find function in settings to find the Atom Pro again. Then it works for awhile until the IDE forgets it is there again.

I’ve never powered my Atoms with more than 9V. A 7.2V or 9V battery on Vl and a 6.0V or 7.2V (depending on your servos, etc) works good on Vs. These are what I use.

I find that I usually have to forcebly kill the Atom PRO IDE at this point. Then I reload the IDE and have to have it find the Atom PRO again.

I think you are getting it just fine. I think communication between the IDE and Atom PRO is not working right all the time. I haven’t found any settings that make this any more stable so far.

8-Dale

3

Thanks. I’ll try some of this and use a 7.4V battery.

For some reason I thought the ABB could use 6 to 12 V for logic. I might have made that up in my head though. :slight_smile:

4

Sorry but no go.

I changed over to the IDE 8.0.1.3, tried repeatedly using the find atom button. It says AtomPro 28 Pin detected everytime. I switched to a 7.4V power supply and nothing different.

But when I try to hit program it won’t complete it. Sometimes it doesn’t get through loading, sometimes it gets into writing but never makes it past 80%. Sometimes only to 20% or 57%.

I tried reseting my atom as well.

The LED stays lit on it all the time. Does it blink like the ssc-32 when it’s communicating? How long do i have to hold down the reset?

I’m not sure what to try next.

5

don’t happen to have anything running in the background like media player do you? I’ve had programming tools in the past that rely on tight timing requirements get screwed up by media applications running concurrently. for the record though, up until this 8.0.1.3 version programming the BAP on my PC was a fustrating experience for the same reason you are seeing, and I have a real serial port not USB translator. Now the latest thrill is occasionally getting the IDE locked up when debugging… end task followed by do you want to send mickeysoft a report type locked up. I don’t use it enough or currently have the time to work through it at the moment to make a big stink about it… but at least for moral support I am letting you know you are not alone. :wink:

6

I have nothing running and it’s a real serial port, com1. It works fine with the SSC-32.

I programmed a botboard and atom pro before for my giant hexapod and it worked the first time. Once I figured out how to. LOL

I just don’t know how to get it to work now.

7

It has been awhile since I tried doing the downloads from a machine that actually had a hardware serial port, so I do not remember all of the different settings. But you might try opening up the hardware control panel and bringing up the properties up for your comm port and see if there are some parameters you can try changing. Things like buffer size, delays and the like. That is more of a long shot.

My guess is you already tried most of the other things I would suggest, but I thought I would mention them anyway as sometimes things get overlooked.

If it were me, I would also try unplugging everything from the ABB and see if it can program it then. I would also make sure the BAP is properly seated in the socket, with all of the pins in the right place. Obviously if you have a second board, I would try it to localize the problem, to see if it is the PC or cable or the ABB/BAP.

Good Luck

8

Com port 1 settings:
BPS = 115200
Data bits = 8
Parity = none
stop bits = 1
flow control = 1

FIFO buffer is off.

Tried with different AtomPro and ABB, exact same thing.

And when I try with the ABB unplugged, it won’t even start to load the program. So it knows the Atom is there. It must be a setting I’m overlooking.

9

Not sure I could add much more. It looks like you have eliminated the BAP/ABB as the problem. Likewise the power to them as you have tried two different batteries…

Which OS? Have you tried rebooting? Tried a different serial cable?

My assumption is that your serial port is on the motherboard and not a plug in card? If plug in card, I would probably try to reseat the card. Maybe also clean contacts with eraser. This is a long shot. Checked for no hardware conflicts (interrupts…) Again a long shot, given that you can talk to the SSC-32. I take it from your previous post that your comm port does not have an advanced button in the property page?

Now to the IDE. Have you checked the settings Tools\Preferences. Under that advanced page, are any of your settings different then the defaults?

Not sure what else to suggest.

10

Xp and the serial port is on the motherboard. No advanced button.

I’ve been rebooting alot. No go.

I even tried the old version of the IDE, nothing different.

This Atom Pro and Botboard is brand new too. Pin 1 aligned properly and all pins seated. Everything else is unplugged now too.

And I tried with the SSC-32 again and RIOS can control servos on it via the serial port.

I tried reseting as well, nothing.

Strangely, my other board beeps and this one does not. And the speaker jumper is on.

11

When I try to program I get these numbers:

Ram Memory Used (system) 4 bytes
Ram Memory used (user) 202 bytes
Ram memory used (stack) 1842 bytes

Program memory used (tokens) 14680 bytes
Program memory used (library) 5330 bytes
Program memory used (total) 20010 bytes
Program memory free 11734 bytes

No errors detected.

Even when it’s in the process of programming the atom, the light isn’t flashing on the board.

Is my memory full? I tried pushing reset a few times. Even holding down for 30 seconds.

12

GGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I disabled everything including my antivirus and spybot. The first couple tries it stopped and said unable to connect: verify load or something.

Then it started to work and got to 98% !!! Then said Error connecting to atom: Operation completed successfully.

Successfully my butt!!! I’m gonna throw this thing in a snow bank pretty soon. :imp:

Now it just says Connection lost to Atom: Verify load feb3(ff:aa)

13

I have James testing the Atom Pro IDE on an XP laptop with USB to serial cable, a Vista desk top with true serial and usb to serial. We will figure this out. Hold on there, help is on the way…

14

I believe that the LED is simply a power indicator. Some of mine beep some don’t, I think it depends on what program was on the board before…

If I were you, I would try playing with the advance comm settings in the IDE to see if that changes things. I know that some people had to play with the reset hold time to make things work, but that is usually when it says error connecting…

15

LOL, thanks Jim. I’m going bonkers. Especially since this worked before.
I was even using a serial port off a laptop but it worked first try with my other hex.

I think it’s trying to make me commit suicide. :slight_smile:

I just keep trying and trying and sometimes it gets to different percentages but the light never blinks and it never completes the programming.

As I said, it works fine with the ssc-32.

Thanks. I don’t know what to do with any of the advanced settings. I tried changing the reset hold time from the default of 25 but if I change it to anything else, I get the “Check Load feb3” error.

16

First, I’d recomend you call us(BasicMicro) in the future when you get a problem like this instead of speding days on end trying to fix it yourself.
Sorry about the headaches.

I don’t know anything about Gateway Media PCs. What OS is it running? Is it fast? How much ram? The 25 setting is only and average setting. It may need to be adjusted but in this case it isn’t the problem because that is only to get in to the bootloader mode which you are able to do everytime from what I’ve read.

Note: The loading routine has not changed since 8.0.0.0 was released which is why you are seeing the same problem on all 8.0.X.X releases.

17

Thanks for the reply.

I’m using a Gateway 835GM Media Center PC, Pentium Dual 2.8 Ghz, 2 Gigs of Ram, PCI Express 512MB ATI Saphire Video Card, and Windows XP Pro Media Edition with all updates.

The serial port is com 1 by default and runs directly off the motherboard. No USB to Serial Adapter.

I tried using the old 7.XXX version of the IDE as well with the same results.

And I just finished working with some sequences in SEQ and the computer was communicating fine with the ssc-32 via the same serial port and cable.

Is it possible that the serial port on my computer is actually a usb port that has an integrated converter on the board so that it acts as a serial port?

18

FIrst the AtomPro is programmed at 115200bps. SEQ I don’t beleive runs at that speed(at least not default). There is much wider error handling capability at the lower baud rates. The next release does have some changes to the loader routines to generate a more acurate baud rate, less then .5% error now. The old routines had as much as 1.5% even though that is still inside the spec. I’m finishing it up this weekend and will have a link up here(on the forums) by Monday.

19

As for your port on your PC being a USB to serial instead of real uart I don’t know. I know some laptops are like that. It’s possible but I’ve never seen it in a desktop.

20

Just so you know, SEQ and RIOS use 115.2k as the default. I believe the timing for programming is probably just more critical.