Help: Hexapod can't talk to PS2 controller

Lynxmotion Legged Robots
1

Hi all,

I ordered a Hexapod package AH3RCA-BLK and set it up following the instruction of “The Complete H3/H3-R Tutorial v2.0”. Everything seemed fine till “Step 12: Controlling the robot”, as the PS2 can’t talk to the robot although the right led of PS2 receiver on the robot does flash all the time! Then I altered it to “control via serial port”, it failed as well.

Can anybody kindly tell me what the problem possible is located???

PS: in Step 7 the manual says “Install the following jumpers: …VL to I/O 4-7 bus…”, I can’t find any “VL-to-I/O 4-7 bus” though, what does this mean, pleeease?

Here is my configuration:

Hardware:

  • SSC-32 / Bot Board II / BASIC Atom 28
  • PS2 Cable / PS2 Wireless Controller
  • Hexapod 3 / 3-R

Software:

  • PowerPod V 1.02
  • Basic Micro Atom IDE 5.3.1.0

Thanks advance and happy holidays!

LS

2

first off i would try to see if the battery you are using is not low on power!!

also some controllers may need to be put into analog mode manually.

do you hear a beep once you apply power? continuously, once, or not at all?

you have a bad connection. - check batterys in controller!

see picture… lynxmotion.com/images/assemb … h3r12b.jpg

hope this helps.

3

If you power on the receiver and the transmitter correctly, they should connect even if the Atom is not installed. Try it in a PS2 game console to see if it will work there. Also are there any other 2.4ghz devices in the area that could be interfering?

4

First, thanks greatly to both innerbreed and Robot Dude for your kind helps! My apology for my late response as just came back from a short leave:)

Also please forgive me since I still can not post image in this forum so I have to elaborate stuffs using words :frowning:

We have considerred both of your suggestions and double-checked all steps. The latest progress is that the Hexapod can be controlled via serial-port, while for PS2, we can never make it :frowning:

Here are the questions left, hope you guys and other folks in this forum may kindly help us out, thanks in advance! :slight_smile:

Question #1: How to power the Hexapod?

First, we used one single fullly-charged 6V/1600mAh battary. We controlled the Hexapod H3-A using “Serial Port Control Panel” software in serial port control mode. When power was on, the legs ran abnormally and the MCU on Bot Board-II kept on resetting. We measured the power supply and found that when the hexapod moved, the voltage suddenly dropped from 6V to 4V, and then rised back to 6V. We believe that that should be what caused MCU to reset all the time.

Then we used an external 6V/8A power to drive the motors, while the MCU was powered separately by the 6V/1600mAh battery. Everything seemed just fine and no reset occurred anymore; the Hexapod could move normally then!

My question then is: HOW should we supply power(s) to the Hexapod (Bot Board-II and SSC-32)?

Question #2: PS2 failure again…

As for the PS2 controller, we never make it work! I just wanna emphsize that we set it up very carefully following the manual.

First, we checked the battery of PS2, it is good.

Second, we followed the instructions and steps of “PS2 Robot Control: Establishing Communication” in Lynxmotion’s Website to test the PS2. We found it always showed

FF 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255…

no matter whether we pushed the PS2 button or not!

When we turned on the PS2 controller first, followed with that of the robot, we saw the right red-light of the PS2 receiver on the robot kept on flashing, and so did the light on the PS2 controller. However, the robot simply did not respond when we pushed the PS2 buttons, and the outputs of the above-mentioned test modules were always “FF 255 255 255…”.

If we reset the power on PS2 controller, we found that the red light on the PS2 receiver stopped flashing and always lighted up; but still, it did not further response!

So my question is: how to CORRECTLY set up the PS2 controller?

Thanks always!

LS

5

As to Question 1, on my CHR3 I use a 2800mah 6 volt battery for the servos and a simple 9 volt battery connected to the logic portion of the BB2/Atom Pro (or ABB as mine is older) and the SSC-32. Works fine, I think this arrangement is shown in several of the documents.

As for Question 2, I have not tried it with a standard Atom in awhile. But my best luck was to first turn on the power to the robot, then turn on the PS2 and then hit the Analog button on the controller.

Kurt

6

do you use a lynxmotion ps2 controller?

they are very bad soldering!

i have 2 , one is the handcontroller bad, i buy a new one. there was the reciver bad. i use the handcontroller 2 and recevier one then was good.

i solder the other 2 ones new. yet is okay. they works fine…

very bad production. soldering is bad.

7

this may help you. you should have receive one of these in printed format when you received your board!
lynxmotion.com/images/data/bb2pdf.pdf

also i see the above step must be correct as you have power!!!

i would buy another controler! i have a standard ps2 wireless i got from a street store!

8

All of the cheap PS2 controllers made in China have quality issues. I stand behind our controllers and will replace one for free if it is defective. Not sure what you’re bitching about!