Yes, the documentation
Yes, the documentation indicates motors are hooked up after the darling tons. The difficulty I had was hooking the motor between the output pin and ground as stated in the documentation did not work well (see below):
Hooking up the motor between the output pin and V+ as below works super (see below):
Thanks Jinn,This is the same
Thanks Jinn,
This is the same issue. I haven’t hooked everything up yet, but I have tested the speaker connected between O0 and +V on the darlington side. Did you try this and run into a problem?
If you connect the speaker
If you connect the speaker to a +5V pin it will burn the speaker, because it will continuously get voltage to it…
It has to be connected to the output (Picaxe, not Darlington) and a ground.
Your small speaker should be connected like this:
Hey! Big congratulations on
Hey! Big congratulations on getting the Solarbotics kit available!
Nice!
Only one track working
I’ve got all the tests working except for the left track- right track works, all the drum and neck motor work, just not the right track…
Checked the connections, and if I reverse the connections, the right track works (with left track test script), so it’s not the motor or connections…
Any clues?
Only one track working
I’ve got all the tests working except for the left track- right track works, all the drum and neck motor work, just not the right track…
Checked the connections, and if I reverse the connections, the right track works (with left track test script), so it’s not the motor or connections…
Any clues?
Only one track working
I’ve got all the tests working except for the left track- right track works, all the drum and neck motor work, just not the right track…
Checked the connections, and if I reverse the connections, the right track works (with left track test script), so it’s not the motor or connections…
Any clues?
Umm, why the triple
Umm, why the triple post?
First, verify that the left motor can be made to turn at all. Connect a small battery right to your left motor wires (disconnect from the Picaxe first), and verify that the motor works. If that works, reconnect it and run a simple test program that should run just that motor.
If you get your left motor turning, but it goes backwards, swap the + and - wires for that motor, or change the code to match your physical set up.
Motor Works
Triple post was an accident- page was updating ridiculously slow when I posted.
Yep the left motor can turn when hooked directly to the battery, or if you switch the MA/MB leads on the board.
Also checked the soldering of the posts that were soldered to the board- that’s not the issue. Maybe the motor controller, but I thought the secondary motor controller was only for the drums and neck???
OK, so the instructions say
OK, so the instructions say connect the left motor to the two MA pins and the right motor to the two MB pins. I assume that is how you did it. You must be sure you are not taking one wire from the left motor and connecting to one of the MA pins, and connecting the other wire from the left motor to one of the MB pins.
I point this out because, if the pins are LOW by default, you could see a motor move during testing, even if one of its wires is on the wrong pin.
Also, confirm that you don’t have anything connected to digital output pins 4 or 5, since those are also used by the L293d to control the motors.
Do you have a multimeter? Can you test the voltage output across the two MA pins while you are running the left belt test program? You should see it display a postive voltage for short period, then zero, then a negative voltage, then zero. Then it should repeat.
If you could post a detailed, in focus picture of your board so we can see all the connections, that might help.
Sound Module issues
Hi fritsl!
Thanks for getting back to me so soon.
“Can you confirm this:
You power the SM from “the robot”. - Confirmed (from the AXE)
You can press the button/short the wires, and it works. - Confirmed
You change nothing, and then…
You have a (confirmed) ground connection (Marked “G”), and you get zero response when either wire is touching that?” - Confirmed, BUT - when the Positive wire touches G, nothing happens, then the other wire touches G, it gets very hot.
Is this the picture you were asking for?
Thanks again.
Hi TheBadger,Thanks for
Hi TheBadger,
Thanks for moving the topic to here, and sorry for your trouble.
The picture is good… You have copied my text, I just need you to confirm that this is how things are? This works if you connect the two wires with each other? (but not if you connect one of them to ground)?
And… the sound board and the robot are sharing ground (are powered from the same source)? (I cannot see that on the picture)
No trouble at all - just
No trouble at all - just amazed I’m conversing with the creator of such brilliance! Sorry. Too much?
Yes, it works if I connect the two wires to each other, but not if I connect one of them to ground on the AXE. As you can see in the picture (I hope), the power supply is connected to the PICAXE-28, and then the sound module has two female headers, the red attached to V and the black attached to G (both on the AXE). I’ve tried to show a cutaway where, on the AXE, the V and G from the sound module are attached. The blue line is where I’m trying to ground the sound module’s Play positive wire. I’ve tried other Grounds on the board as well, to no avail.
Thanks for your patience.
Good work with the print and
Good work with the print and all 
Hmm… It appears you have done everything right, so this is strange.
Of course I never had Solarbotics’s parts to test (and you know how vendors sometimes change parts anyway) - so this is what I’d do:
Quick as a Ninja (do not touch for long, just “tzt! - nib nib, dib ding, tjaw”… how the hell do one write that? It sounds good when I sit here and say it - fast, for crying!) try all 4 combos: both wires, both G and V (not at the same time) - and test if touching each other (like switching on) every time still makes it play.
Let us just make absolutely sure that it’s not working before we move on… Elaborated:
Wire A from sound module to G
Wire A from sound module to Wire B from sound module (test that it’s not fried)
Wire B from sound module to G
Wire A from sound module to Wire B from sound module (test that it’s not fried)
Wire A from sound module to V
Wire A from sound module to Wire B from sound module (test that it’s not fried)
Wire B from sound module to V
Wire A from sound module to Wire B from sound module (test that it’s not fried)
… let me know how that went 
LMAO! Ninja testing. I love
LMAO! Ninja testing. I love it.
The last suggestion from your list worked. “Wire B from sound module to V”. I’m thinking I was too scared to fry anything to test both wires on V AND G. A little wisp of smoke from “somewhere” (I’m assuming the sound module) did appear when I was first testing and that’s when I decided to go to the pros.
So can I assume that “Wire B” is ok to be attached to the I3 location on the AXE board? Or should I change something now that the polarity is opposite? (Did that make sense?)
Also, should I assume that the negative wire from the Record button will work on the V as well? (Yeah, I’ll test this one too 
)
Thanks.
If it works, move on.That
If it works, move on.
That was all I had to say 
I am sure if you ask someone else, they’ll dive into what is going on here. But not me.
Output voltage low
Hello, Ive almost completed this robot (Awesome tutorial) but for some reason all my outputs seem to only output about .1 volts, and wont drive my motors or anything. Very frustrating, Im new to picaxe so I have no clue what the cause could be. I havent installed the sound board, but That shoulnt matter since Im just testing snare_test.bas, etc.
Nevermind
Nevermind, I figured it out, My board has a darlington thingy so I need to connect V+ instead of Ground. Now I just got to redo half of my wires because they are backwards >.>
Actually
<Snip (Whoops double post)>
