I am a teacher in Australia who wants to introduce robotics into one of my classes. We have purchased an ALD5 arm with a bot botuino board. Which is the best software to use? The only version on the site we could get to open for us is the ‘Dual Lynx arm controller’ and the ‘Lynx arm config’. When trying to do the initial config there is a green ‘not connected’ box appearing top right. I have got the 240 volt lead connected as well as the 9 volt battery and the usb lead going to my laptop. On the board the power led is solid yellow, L is flashing and TX and RX are flashing, so obviously the board is powered up. The servo battery switch when it is ON seems to cause the arm to twitch on its own as I have not done any programming at all at this stage, as the arms haven’t been calibrated yet. I have got the jumpers set up according to the tutorial download for bot botuino boards. I want to use a laptop and mouse to write a program on the screen and then activate the arm from there at this stage. Where do I locate the manual for the bot botuino boards? If I knew how to load photos onto this blog I would put in a photo of the board but I am unable to get hem to paste into the blog.
thanks
Mark Sellin
Hi Mark,
The Dual Lynx Arm Controller and Lynx Arm Config programs are actually made for the SSC-32, so they won’t work with the BotBoarduino.
The BotBoarduino is made to be custom programmed using the Arduino IDE software available at arduino.cc/en/Main/Software. Once you have the software installed, you can create and upload “sketches” to the BotBoarduino by selecting the “Arduino Duemilanove w/ ATmega328” type board from the Tools > Board menu and selecting the correct COM port form the Tools > Serial Port menu.
Once you have this configured, you should be able to upload the Blink example (found under File > Examples > 01.Basics) to make the L led blink on and off once a second. Once you got this working, you’ve confirmed your setup is working and you can proceed to make your program!
As a starting point, we have an example arm sketch available here: github.com/Lynxmotion/Arms/blob … ontrol.ino
This example is made for use with the PS2 controller. If you don’t have one, you can modify the code to remove references to it. If you do want to use a PS2 controller, you will also need to download the PS2X library and save the files in your My Documents / Arduino / libraries folder. The library is available here: github.com/Lynxmotion/Arduino-PS2X
Let me know how this works for you!
Hi Jeffrey,
thanks for your reply. I have successfully downloaded the arduino program and selected the correct board and com 4 seems to the port on this laptop. I have completed the blink test and seems to be working correctly. One of the guys I work with has a PS2 controller and will bring it to work next week so I can start more on the programming. With regards to the power supply, do I need to have the power pack coming from the mains supply or should the robot just be powered through the usb connected to the computer. I have still got the 9 volt battery connected but just did the testing without the mains power connected and it did the blink test okay.
I am not sure if I have to change the jumper at 17 to cover the usb terminal (I haven’t as yet, I have just left it as per the AL5 programming tutorial). I have tried several times unsuccessfully to upload a picture of the circuit board with the jumpers in place.
Also is there a tutorial for writing out some basic code for operating the robot or is it all done using the controller. Previous robots I have used usually involve writing a series of code which can then be run to perform tasks.
Any help is appreciated. If we can get this running we will probably be purchasing several different ones of these and having the class work in rotation on different one such as the hexapods and tracked units.
thanks
Mark
A quick fix might be to purchase an ssc-32 to use with the arm so the available software can be used.
This is an attempt to upload a photo of the bot botuino board as I have got the jumpers at present. Do they look correct?
s1281.photobucket.com/user/_mark … sort=3&o=1
thanks
Mark
Hi Mark,
I should have specified: the sample sketch is made for the Lynxmtion PS2 controller. You might be able to use another PS2 controller (like an official one from Sony), but you may be missing parts such as the receiver and logic level converter. I want to note that other controllers are untested.
Here are the parts for connecting the receiver:
Alternatively, you can purchase a new remote with all these parts as a kit:
The BotBoarduino has many possible power setups, but the one that’s recommended for the arm is to have a 9 volt battery plugged into the VL terminal, the wall (mains) adapter plugged into the VS terminal, and ensure that the VL=VS jumper is removed. The VL source powers the logic circuits on the board, including the microcontroller. The VS source powers the servo motors. That is why you can reprogram the BotBoarduino and do the blink test without the VS source plugged in.
Jumper 17 is used to select USB power instead of the 9 volt battery. You can find more information about the other power options on this page:
We don’t have any tutorials specifically for BotBoarduino and the Lynxmotion arms, but the general Arduino tutorials will show you most of what you can do.
Like zoomkat said, another possibility is to get an SSC-32 controller that will allow you to use the Dual Lynx Arm Controller and Lynx Arm Config programs.
It will also allow you to use the new FlowBotics Studio software which allows you to do use the FlowStone visual programming language to program the arm.
You might also be interested in the Servo Erector Set v1.1 kit we recently released: it doesn’t include any tracked robots, but does have the parts necessary to build a 2WD rover, an AL5D arm, a BRAT Biped, a SQ3 Quadruped, or a MH2 hexapod.
Hope this helps,
Thanks for the picture. You do have the jumpers properly setup for the 9-volt battery plus wall adapter setup.
