General comments on rover

Lynxmotion Rovers, Sumo, and Tracked
1

Hello All:

I have been working in micro-controllers since the mid '70s. Messed with lots of stuff from SGES/ATES Z80H in PacMan systems to Stellaris Cortex ARM units (now TI). Have watched Arduino for years and tried to think what they are good for. So, I finally got a Mechanum Rover V2 - 4 WD version.

And…I’m underwhelmed. Putting it together was a stroll down memory lane - Revell F105 models from 1962 - the infamous Thud (or lead sled as the Air Force jocks called them). More than underwhelmed, I’m feeling ripped off. This is not a system - it’s a bunch of parts with a little piece of paper that says ‘good luck.’ No BOM, not overall drawings, just a few vague references to you tube videos that don’t really show the unit I’m assembling.

So, I have it assembled - then where’s the software that runs this thing? Has anyone here heard of a repository? Does Git ring a bell? Or Subversion?

Is there a controlled drawing that shows what is on the motor shield that was sent with my unit (DRRobot.com L289P-Twin1.1) … no. How do I connect the wheel speed feedback to the L289P-Twin1.1? Not - it’s not compatible. OH.

The Arduino project package is a sophomoric joke - excuse me, I’m sure the people that put it together put a lot of time into it, but have they ever looked at Eclipse? They repeated a lot of work that was done a decade ago and did it worse - it runs like a geriatric turtle on my box - and throws C compiler errors on the demo projects.

I can do better messing with FreeRTOS on a Cortex ARM chip than I can on one of these AtMega chips.

Call me -

underwhelmed

2

We do appreciate the feedback. The cover of the box should have included a link to the complete assembly guide (not just the YouTube videos). Here is a link to the User Guide. Note that all information we have is obtained under the “Useful Links” tab in the product description, including schematic, dimensional drawings, Arduino Tutorials etc. Rather than create a lengthily written assembly guide, we have found that customers prefer an assembly video, which is what we did for this product as well. We do apologize that the encoder assembly was not included in the Mecanum Assembly video - it had not been released at that time. Connect “signal” to “S”, “5+” to “+” and “GND” to “-” on the shield. It is important to read through the user guide as it explains where to download the software, and also provides the sample code.

With regard to the Arduino software itself, there are millions of users at this time around the world in almost all countries, and it is fast becoming the most popular hobbyist programming language around. Although it may be true that Eclipse may have been a better program, for whatever reasons it died off. Nobody is forcing you to use ATmel chips - you can still use a Cortex processor or other system if that is your preference.