A few weeks ago I bought the Tri-track chassis set with separate electronics so that I could assemble it on my own, I finished building it according to the assembly guide and now I need to progam it. But Flowbotics’ SSC-32 Servo Sequencer cant find it and I dont know what to do.
Hi,
Would help to have more information. Like how is it powered? When you first turn the power on to the Tri-track, does the LED on the SSC-32 turn on? When you try anything like have flowbotics talk to it, does the LED flash at all?
Which tutorial? This one? lynxmotion.com/images/html/build115.htm
What electronics? I assume SSC-32 as per your title. What is it hooked up to? Sabertooth hooked up to it? What jumpers are on the SSC-32? Do you have both of the Baud rate jumpers installed, which configures the SSC-32 for a baud rate of 115200? This is the area marked #9 in the SSC-32 guide picture: lynxmotion.com/images/html/build136.htm
Are the two jumpers in place for TX/RX in #14?
Again I am just shooting in the dark here.
Does your computer have a hardware serial port that you are using or are you using a USB to serial adapter? If an adapter which one? When you plug it in, does it create a comm port?
Hi,
Yes LEDs are on, on the SSC-32 and the sabertooth. Both jumpers are on to work on 115.2K baud. I am connecting the SSC-32 with a serial-USB adapter, USB2S-01.
I am new to this and do not know how to configure my USB to work as a serial port.
Sorry,
Not sure how much I can help here, as there still don’t have a lot of information, like type of computer, OS… But I will assume PC? running some form of windows? Likewise it would be good to describe your wiring and the like, preferably with pictures and the like. Also if you were using some diagram or tutorial, would help to know which one…
Note: I mostly avoid using flowbotics, so someone else may have to give additional information on things specific to it. But more back to basics:
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When you plug in your USB adapater, it should create a comm port. Usually FTDI based adapters such as this one works pretty easily.
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Which comm port did it create? On Windows 7, I usually find this out, a few different ways.
a) Use some other tool, example Arduino IDE. Plug in the adapter, then go to the tools menu, Serial Port menu item and see what new item was added to the list.
b) Go to start menu, choose the Devices and Printers menu item, and try to find the comm port. Sometimes this is not obvious in this list
c) Bring up device manager. I do this by right clicking on Computer in start menu, bring up properties, and there is an item in the properties to bring up Device manager. Once this is up look under Ports (Com & LPT). In my current case my FTDI based USB adapter shows up as Com4. -
As I mentioned, I don’t normally use the flowbotics based programs, but I remember there was an issue with some of these that they find the SSC-32 by trying to send a command to each logical Serial port, Com1:, Com2:, … until it finds a port that gives back the right response.
At the time, The program used to only look at com ports up to something like Com20 or was it Com32… Again don’t remember… So if your comm port is a higher number the program would not find it. For most people this would not be an issue, but I use a lot of different boards, so I hit this when I tried it out back then. In this case you need to renumber your port… -
If it were me, I would try to use some simple program like Lynxterm, to see if I can talk to the board. (lynxmotion.com/p-567-free-do … xterm.aspx). You could use almost any simple terminal program. Try to connect to the board using the comm port and the baud rate of 115200. I then would type in a simple command like: ver
you should see the led blink on the SSC-32 when it receives any data. When you press the CR, hopefully the SSC-32 will respond with a text string showing the version number of the firmware on the SSC-32.
Kurt
Thanks Kurt for covering the basics: I can cover the points about FlowBotics. 
First, Cilliers, the software that you are using is the free SSC-32 Servo Sequencer Utility (RB-Dsp-07), correct? This program starts scanning all available COM ports for the one with the SSC-32 board, and it doesn’t have any limitation on port number: I just tried it with COM248! You can also skip the Auto detect process and specify the right COM port number if you know it.
The utility defaults to 115,200 baud, so you need to change the setting if you’re using another speed. Like Kurt said, the speed of the board is determined by the jumpers in area #9 in the SSC-32 guide. Can you tell us what jumpers you are using?
If Kurt’s instructions and these instructions don’t get your board running, can you give us more information (Kurt’s questions above) and can you post some pictures showing your setup including all your SSC-32 connections?
Hope this helps,