I'm an app programmer trying to get into the hardware world.
I bought myself an arduino uno a rover 5 2 motors and 2 encoders and the comotion shield(https://robosavvy.com/store/dagu-commotion-motor-driver-shield.html) hoping to be able to follow this tutorial :
Not at all a Noob question - the products you chose are not the easiest to understand. The ComMotion “shield” seems to include two onboard microcontrollers. It’s certainly not a shield since the pins don’t protrude from underneath. It seems like you don’t need a separate Arduino microcontroller - take a look at page 7 in their guide. This is a very different type of product and the documentation is not the easiest to understand. You’ll ideally wire the two motors on one side to one of the motor controller ports, ensuring they rotate in the same direction. The two motors from other other side would be wired to another motor controller terminal, again ensuring the motors rotate in the same direction. In this case, you’ll really need to read through the guide thoroughly.
over 2 years i bought the rover 5 and was able to control it with an adruino and a sparkfun motor controller, i had brain cancer and got a few disabilities and lost memory.
I’m mostly a programmer. I was able to get back to work writing but my heart was always with hardware.
a few friends funded some kits for me to start again. but it seems i’m still out of touch.
Currently i’m stuck at how do i tell which wires from the rover 5 are from the motors or the encoders? This is really the first problem.
i’m afraid of just busting something, unlike software i’ll have to buy this stuff again.and i don’t have the money.
so (1) how do i deduce which wire is which from the rover 5?. (putting some current in two till the motors move?
(2)i understand from the manual it seems to have a picture ike a shield:
i follow the partof using an arduino as a programmer but then… what code/ pins do i set to (A) control the motors and (B) get input from the encoders :/ so all the code resides on the comotion? i wanted to use the arduino to add an rf receiver or some other components…
yes i see how the setting bytes for motots and angles sort of blow my mind and i guess thats too much for what i know right now. i’ll try controlling a led or single motor from an arduino…
but is there a starting i can got to figuring things out… after i figure which wire is ?
and yes, these experts fiddling with all kinds of stuff also mentioned that the data sheets were skippy
turns out the shield connects to the target arduino over i2c and once you connect the motors and encoders you can setup the shield to follow commands. I won’t go into here i’m going to try to get it working…
ofc this doesn’t tell at all which wires on the chasis is which… that is really a horrible thing from dagu really diaapointed. I’m going to write to them,
the CCC guys helped me deduce the wires with an oscilloscope :)
Regarding knowing which wire is which, you’d need to consult the manual, which should indicate at least a color code. If not, reach out to the manufacturer. You are entirely correct that incorrectly wiring something can easily damage or blow components. As soon as you know which wires are which, you would connect the motor positive and negative to the controller’s motor terminal, and wire the encoder according to the manual.
