Please share
Please, send us a picture of the box, the “official serial number” and the kit. We old-timers never actually saw one!
Ok expect a picture next week
Ok expect a picture next week
I will post the picture next
I will post the picture next week as a reply to this reply
Apparently there should be
Apparently there should be included a little card with the kit, this has a number on it, that is what we specially would love to have a picture of 
Thanks!
Sure
sure
**It left solar botics today **
It left solar botics today
Built this today
Hey all, been building this for the last two days and finally completed it today. Was a really fun build, not without challenge for someone whos new to robotics!
Its been very useful, but two things.
One of my wheels is not only spinning slower than the other by a small margin, but also appears to not be seated correctly, wobbling at a strange angle. This forces the robot to turn left rather than travel in a straight line.
While not drastic, anyone know an explanation? Ive eliminated the wheel being screwed in too tightly, and my own suspicions lie in a dubious connection to one of the motors. Ive already tried unscrewing it and rescrewing it with no success.
Even with this small problem, the robot is working VERY well, and i expanded on the base code so it could travel at shallower angles and navigate beter than with the base code posted.
The code posted in the tutorial i found difficult to read, so for those who struggle with programming or the logic involved ill post my first version (one before current) which i believe is easier to understand.
One thing to note, is that you may need to play around with servo angles. Mine was centred at 160, due to me unable to get the servo to centre correctly. It works fine for me, but you might need to play around with the numbers, and mess with the order of high/low to get your motors spinning the correct way.
Dont be afraid to mess with smaller test programs first, testing each wheel etc.
Symbol dangerlevel = 80 ’ how far away should obstruction be before robot reacts
symbol turn = 300 ’ by how much should the robot turn?
symbol servo_turn = 700 ’ how long does the robot wait after turning the servo before continuing?
main:
servo 0, 165
readadc 0, b0 ’ scan ahead!
if b0 < dangerlevel then
gosub wayclear ’ if path is clear, continue on
gosub whichway ’ if obstacle ahead then decide which way is clear
end if
goto main
wayclear:
low 4 : high 5 : low 6 : high 7
return
whichway:
gosub fullstop
'Scan left:
gosub lturn ’ look to the left
pause servo_turn ’ wait for the servo to be finish turning
readadc 0, b1
gosub fullstop
'Scan right:
gosub rturn ’ look to the right
pause servo_turn ’ wait for the servo to finish turning
readadc 0, b2
gosub fullstop
'Right or left? Which way is clear? Rmbr that lower values = further away
if b1<b2 then
gosub body_lturn
else
gosub body_rturn
end if
return
rturn:
servo 0, 110 ’ look to the right
return
lturn:
servo 0, 210 ’ look to the left
return
body_lturn:
high 4 : low 5 : low 6 : high 7
pause turn : gosub fullstop
return
body_rturn:
high 5 : low 4 : low 7 : high 6
pause turn : gosub fullstop
return
fullstop:
low 4 : low 5: low 6: low 7
servo 0, 165
return
Thanks again, hope thats been useful to someone. If i borrow a friends multimetre and discover a greater resistence on one motor, ill post. In the meantime, if anyones got any theories dont hesistate to reply.
LMR bundle was great.
Hey, there. Congrats on
Hey, there. Congrats on building your first robot. Go ahead and post your own robot page with your creation! Time to show us what you’ve done. Share pictures and video if you can.
Congrats on your first robot.
Congrats on your first robot. I built the starter robot too and had the exact same problem with one motor being slower than the other. I thought a million different things at different times as to what caused it. I originally thought it was my ■■■■ poor soldering job. With all the troubleshooting, I eventually just ended up making it worse. Eventually I bought new motors. Never rebuilt my starter bot though, felt like I wouldn’t learn anything new after the fifth rebuild. That one slow motor was the only thing that really gave me any problems.
A good way to test the motor, is too hook them up straight to a battery. If one still turns more slowly, the motor is almost certaintly no good. It is easier to tell how fast the motor is going with the wheels on, but to make sure that your wheel isn’t screwed on too tightly and causing problems, you can remove them (not sure if it is even possible to cause problems by screwing it on too tight). I was able to still see the difference with no wheels connected. Also, use your ears, my broken motor, just didn’t sound right at all compared to the good one.
Solarbotics Motors
Hey guys!
Renosis hit it right on the head - If you’re having problems with the motors, the best way to test them is to just hook them up right to a battery (a 9V cell works great). If your motors don’t match in speed, then you’ve probably received a defective unit. Try giving a shout to [email protected] and relay the details of what is going wrong. Our tech will check over a few different problems/solutions, and if it can’t be easily fixed we’ll replace it for you at no charge (shipping and everything!).
Sorry about the problem, guys. We do our best to screen for busted motors, but the odd one still manages to sneak through. If you suspect one of your parts is broken please feel free to get in touch with us - we hate getting defective components as much as you do.
PICAXE Problems
My PICAXE, provided in the bundle, is giving me a few issues. I can program it just fine but the motors and servo do nothing. When I first apply power, the servo turns a bit and then goes dormant. The Sharp however does work fine when viewing the debugger. Servo is connected to pin 0 with the ground on the outermost pin and power on the center pin. I can post a pic if needed.
Sounds like you should have
Sounds like you should have a look at the V2 - https://www.robotshop.com/letsmakerobots/node/75 - I think something is not hooked up right on your board. And Servo and Motors both get from V2… or from V1, if you have the little jumper on the right place.
If you are not sure what I am talking about, post a picture of your board, and we can tell from that.
Thank you
Hey, buddy, thanks for the reply. I had a good look at my ICs and found out that I had my resistor array and my driver in the opposite slots. The 4116R that is provided in the bundle is black and I wasn’t paying enough attention when I inserted it. Everything is good now except that the little bot drifts to the right a bit. I am going to modify the code and try to have him use self-corrective steering to an extent.
Navigation
Great Robot,
First of all I would like to thank you for making this guide.
I have been able to succesfuly build it but found one problem. My robot goes forward for about 2 seconds then stops looks around and starts spinning like crazy for about 6 seconds.
Then it repeats, goes forward 2 seconds then backwards 2 seconds then stops looks around and spins.
I checked to see if the code was the same and it is, any ideas of what could be wrong?
Sounds like you skipped this
Sounds like you skipped this part: " if you inserted the right parameters for high/low to suit your wiring to the motors"
Thank You for your help
Thank you so much, you have just solved my problems
I had mixed the wires fromm the motors and now that i fixed that eveything is OK
Now one last thing, if I wanted to add an LCD would I add the code before the subrutines or after them?
Cool that the problem is
Cool that the problem is solved
Regarding the structure of your code; That is entirely depending on what you want to do. My best advice is to start by making one thing work at a time. it can never be said enough times. When one thing is working, add the next little thing. Make sure it works, add the next.
There is no rule of the structure as such, people do it different, you will have to find your own ways, using the above procedure, one step (small) at a time
And a note; Working with serial is not a good beginners task! There is a lot to learn, it is not easy!
Correct me if I am wrong,
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you mean LED not LCD. If you want to add an led, you can put the command any where, depending on what you want it to do. Say you want it to be lit up when ever the robot is on, just put it in the beginning. But say you want it to turn on when he is scanning for best path, you would put it under the begining of that sub routine, and then have it shut off at the end of that sub routine.
LCD
No, I mean an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
I want to display, texts, maybe temperature in a screen
Anyways thanks for the tip on hte LED it would be nice to add one
Thanks
Now that you mention the dificulty, I have two LCD´s, what would you recommend the PICAXE AXE033 (their serial LCD with clock)
or a basic 16x2 Character LCD.
Again thanks alot for your help 