I thought so. I already
I thought so. I already spotted a potential replacement at a nearby toy store. Cheap and very small.
I think it should be more widely known because that sampler board they include in the Yellow drum machinebundle really is not appropriate to create such an elegant machine. Sad really.
Yeah. An alternate part is
Yeah. An alternate part is the obvious quick fix.
Perhaps Frits or Solarbotics will respond to your comment with a more proactive solution.
Hi Doczizi - I am terribly
Hi Doczizi - I am terribly sorry for this - it “sounds” unfortunate (no pun…)
Frankly I think I’d better stay “out of this”, as it’s more direct if it’s a matter between you and Solarbotics.
So - if the board is not working for the kit, please help everyone else, as well as yourself, and have a talk with Solarbotics about this.
Sorry again - it’s quite unfortunate if this is the case - but I am sure it is untentional from Solarbotics - so on beforehand thanks for helping out fixing this. Personally I have not tried the board, so I cannot even come up with anything more clever than this.
ALso, I hope you will post to us where this goes, thanks.
Well the good folks at
Well the good folks at Solarbotics were very helpful and genuinely surprised. Most of the time the guys in charge of tracking down parts and buying them are not the same as the tech guys. This little detail of the sound module sneaked by. They did not know. They only picked that sound module because of it’s affordability.
So they said they would make it very clear in their bundle description that the sound module will offer a different result from the original yellow drum machine design and then at the same time they are looking for a replacement part that will be in a similar price range.
I hope that helps manage expectations for the next few who want to build their own drum machine, yellow or not.
Thanks a lot - and of course
Thanks a lot - and of course again; Sorry for this - I hope you will be all right.
I am struggling with the
I am struggling with the sound module from solarbotics -when hacking the device one of the two “play sound wires” does not react to G or V, while the other wire only makes it play the sound with V (not G) as in the instructions above. Does this change wiring or the program to make it work? Same with the wires from the record button - it reacts to V, not G.
Also, I looked into the radio shack version of this sound board - it has an on-board push button rather than a button connected by two wires. As a novice with the solder gun, I tried to solder a wire to the radioshack device after removing the push button, but fried the board something awful. Any ideas for another source?
It’s quite hard to assist
It’s quite hard to assist you without you know… pictures, without having the parts at hand.
The best thing i can say is “go with the instructions”, and if there is something you cannot make work right away, then wait till you get to the (test) programs, and see if they help you to make it work.
if not, then be so kind to post pictures, and ask “only one question” per post, and we will try and help you one step at a time.
I know it’s not much help, but it’s the best I can do here for now.
I belive I had to change it
I belive I had to change it in the code, Now I see that solarbotics did change the part, I was suprised to here the annoying beep too.
I dont quite remember, But I had to reverse the on and off for the sampler board. Dont know if that was anouther issue like the motor fix for the darlington stuff (I still never fixed the neck motor, So it now works but glitchy)
Found a good replacement
At a toy store near me. I was lucky enough to find a sound sampler boardthat does not emit any superfluous sound.
Howeever, the trigger for the playback was a LED set inside a long thin tube. It was used as a motion sensor and after trying many crazy things I am at a loss as to how I can have it triggered by the Picaxe chip.
Opened a thread here about it but I thought I’d add it here since the sound board seems to be a popular issue.
I am sure it can’t bethat hard for someone who understand circuitry a little more than I do.
So today I tried to continue
So today I tried to continue this build, because of the neck motor barley moving. I ended up using a tiny hobby servo and attatching the sensor to it. This removes the need for the motor driver which can actually make the whole robot cheaper (for anyone who reads this). Because the servo is much more powerful, it actually can turn! And to exact positions, ideal for this. Just have to sort out a few more bugs and it will be done 
Good job!The reason that I
Good job!
The reason that I am not using servos is that they are not very “rhythmic” in their moves.
Trouble with sticks
My son and I built this robot and we can’t get the drumstisks to work. Everything else works: the treads, the distance sensor, ‘head’ movement, both speakers, the recorder module, but the drumsticks do not move when we download the test programs for those. We’ve checked several times that the motors are connected to the right pins on the picaxe (Pin O1 for the Snare Drum, for example) and ground (I soldered on a strip of male pins to the ground holes on the picaxe board). No movement. We connected the motors directly to the battery, and the motor works.
I wonder if the drumsticks need to be attached to the external motor control somehow? Am I missing something somewhere that makes it clear?
Thanks for any input, and if you have questions, please ask.
I’m not familiair with
I’m not familiair with picaxe, However I just want to help you and I did a quick search and found that instead of Wiring the motor to - you should wire it to +. see this tread: https://www.robotshop.com/letsmakerobots/node/2548
I’m not 100% sure, but even Frits could make an mistake… Maybe we should wait for some one that knows it for sure.
Thanks for the input! That
Thanks for the input! That may or may not have been the problem, but we found a solution that works.
I took a look at the datasheet for the 28X1 starter kit we got from wherever it was we got it, and observed that pins 1, 2 and one other were hpwm outputs. I theorized that setting a hpwm pin high (even if we didn’t set it as a PWM output) might only set the PWM output to 1 (instead of 255, which would be the maximum value for the PWM). So we moved the snare drum output pin to Pin 0 (temporarily replacing the underneath speaker), ran a test program that pinged pin 0 every 30ms or whatever (my son did it while I was upstairs), and ta-da, it started drumming, until he ran it out of battery power.
So, if you’re building the kit and the outputs aren’t working the way you expect, try non-hpwm pins.
Oops, that wasn’t the
Oops, that wasn’t the solution, he did something else. He hooked the drums up to the input pins, instead of the non hpwm output ports.
Nope, continuing to have
Nope, continuing to have trouble. The high hat and bass drum sticks don’t move when using the input pins either.
Very frustrating.
You mention connecting something to input pins on the PICAXE.
You can not output aka make something happen on a pin that is either INPUT only or currently set as INPUT. You need to make sure you are trying to send signals out an OUTPUT. Kinda like trying to push on a door that can only be pulled.
Yeah, we used the high portc
Yeah, we used the high portc 1, which turns input pins into outputs.
But we finally figured it out. The original suggestion by someone (I forget who, and this forum doesn’t let me look) of putting it on 5V and the output pin worked, instead of on the output pin and GND. I’m not sure I understand why, but we got the sticks hitting solidly in tests. Now we’re tuning the sticks.
Thanks everyone for your help.
Nice!
Good to hear that it works now. 
Rookie Question
Heyo, I bought a kit to make the Yellow Drummer Robot but all I want it to do is drum, it doesnt need to see or say anything or move, and it might be a dumb question but is it as simple as just not doing the other parts of the tutorial?
I was also wondering if someone had a detailed wiring diagram of this that I might be able to take a geeze at.
Cheers
