I bought a Dynex powered USB hub (DX-4P2H), and still has no luck… I’m running out of ideas.
might be worth while to locate another computer with an actual serial port… friend, work, school, public library (uh, nevermind that last one maybe) and verify your hardware works so you know what part you are trouble shooting… do the divide and conquer thing.
I agree with EddieB that it would be good to know if your board and processor are working properly. I did have one Atom chip that did not work that I returned for a replacement. Lynxmotions customer service is very good.
If it were me (and it has been in the past) Some other things I would check for include:
It is possible that when you installed the Atom Pro into the mini-aab board, maybe one or more pins got bent over and are not making contact (happened to me). Or maybe the chip is not properly seated. Or maybe it was installed backwards. Or maybe your 9v battery is low on juice…
Check to make sure your serial cable is working. If you have an SSC-32 board, you could connect to this board and use a terminal to see if the communications is working properly. This is probably a long shot as you said that the Atom IDE said it found the chip on Com4.
You could try a different USB to serial adapter. Maybe one that has the FTDI chip set.
You could check for updated drivers for your prolific chip set.
Once you have your cable installed through your powered USB HUB (with power to the hub…) I would again try experimenting with reset hold time. Try back at 25 maybe 10, 15, 30…
Other than that I am also out of ideas…
Kurt
Set the VL_VS jumper circled in yellow and 9v battery snap leads as shown. Also take note of the Basic Atom Pro module installation.
Use a straight through serial data cable and find a PC that has an RS232 serial port. Also, I would uninstall the Basic Atom Pro software and then reinstall it to make sure all the settings are back to their defaults, because I know you probably made lots of changes with these settings. If none of this works, you might have a bad Basic Atom Pro module and you might want to mail both the ABB board and Atom Pro module to Lynxmotion to see if they (Jim) can determine what the problem is.
I found a computer with a serial port, installed the AtomPRO IDE, but it still couldn’t find it (click on Tools/Preference/Find AtomPro). I used the serial cable that I bought on lynxmotion website (model number DB9-02)
I checked that the atom is inserted correctly, in the right direction, no legs are bent. The VS-VL jumper didn’t help.
There are 7 “parts” involved as far as I can tell:
- The computer (I tried 3 different ones, 2 with the serial-usb adaptor and 1 without)
- The USB-serial (I tried once without)
- The serial cable
- The atom board
- The atom pro 28 pins
- The battery (I tried with a new battery and also with a 6V adaptor)
- Me (like in I’m doing something wrong with the software, missreading the results…)
I think at that point I’d like to send back the board, the atom and the serial cable (I know that it’s unlikely that it’s the cable, but hey… who knows) to lynxmotion to have them replace the part that doesn’t work (or test on their machine that it works and show that I’m the defective component 
)
How can I do that? What address should I send the package to?
Send a PM to Jim, user name “Robot Dude” and he can give you the information for dealing with this.
Sorry to hear you had so much trouble.
Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was out last Friday, and most of Today… 
Just send the stuff to the PO Box listed on the website. I will fix you up ASAP! I too am sorry for your troubles on this. We will get it fixed for you!
Hello Vincent,
Bad news dude. 
I connected your Bot Board, Atom Pro, and DB9 cable to my PC and programmed it with no problems with the 7.2.0.6 version of the Pro IDE. I dunno what could be wrong with your setup, or procedure but the hardware is working properly. I am sending the stuff back to you today. When you get it back we can look further at what you’re doing. At least we know the hardware is functional, so we should be able to figure out what’s going on on your end.
Vincent,
When you get the stuff back, try to include pictures of your setup so we can see. It would be helpful, and you never know, we might be able to spot someting you are over looking.
Thanks, I will…
I received the atom and the board back.
Here are the pictures (click for bigger view)
img475.imageshack.us/img475/5677/img0186wm7.th.jpg
img267.imageshack.us/img267/7379/img0185rx3.th.jpg
The cable is then connected to the PC using a BAFO USB/Serial adaptor.
I tried connecting it directly or through a powered Dynex USB Hub (DX-4P2H).
I installed the AtomPro IDE 7.2.0.6 to rule out any bug in the more up to date 8 version.
In the Tools/Preferences dialog, if I click on “Find AtomPro”, I get an error dialog that says “Could not find AtomPro”. If I set it up to the right port and click Program, I get an error dialog that says “Atom must be connected for Auto detection”. If I set up the IDE to use an AtomPro28, clicking Program builds the program, then shows a “Loading” dialog and ends up with an error dialog that says “Error connecting to ATOM: The operation completed successfully”.
What exactly is supposed to go on between the atom and the PC at shake hand time? I’d like to write a small program that connects to the port, sends the bytes the atom is expecting and see what I receive.
I just added a bunch of info to the Bot Board users manual…
Programming - USB to Serial Cables?
The fastest way to program the Atom or Atom Pro microcontroller is with a PC that has a real serial port. If you have a desktop PC that does not have a serial port it is recommended that you install a serial port card into the PC. If your PC has a USB port it can be used to program the microcontroller, but some will slow the process down a bit.
We have tested the following USB to serial cables and are known to work.
BAFO BF-810
IOGear GUC232A
FTDI or Prolific based USB to serial cables have properties in their drivers called Latency and Buffer. You will need to reduce the size of the buffer from 4k to 1k and the Latency from 16 to 1. As drivers and hardware change it may be necessary to experiment with these values.
Many laptop USB ports are not powered. You can add a powered hub to make the USB to serial cable work for unpowered USB ports.
Hi Jim,
I just looked for the new user’s manual, but came up with the same 2.0 2004 manual. Can you supply a URL?
Thanks,
Alan KM6VV
It’s the Bot Board II manual. The link to the manual will be available when the boards are ready for sale. It shouldn’t be too much longer on this.
I have a BAFO BF-810 cable…
I can’t find those parameters. When I connect the BAFO cable, a new “Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM14)” appears (well, obviously not always COM14, but…). If I go to the properties page, in the “Port Settings” tab, I have these options: Bits per second (115200), Data bits (8), Parity (None), Stop bits (1), Flow control (None). If I go to “Advanced…”, I can enable or disable “Use FIFO buffers (requires 16550 compatible UART)”. If it’s enabled I can change “Receive Buffer” from Low(1) to High(14) (it’s on high now) and “Transmit Buffer” from Low(1) to High(16) (it’s on high now). I can also change the port number (COM14 now).
Where are the size of the buffer and the latency options?
I tried that without success too…
Latency and buffer size are driver settings not port settings. Access the driver properties using device manager, under Ports (COM&LPT) for your com port. Verify you have the newest drivers, I know the older FTDI drivers did not always have the latency adjustment so it is possible your Prolific drivers are dated. Remember that just because they came with the adapter does not mean they are the latest version. (speaking from FTDI experience here only, never used the BAFO adapter.)
The tab I was describing was comming from the device manager. Under Ports (COM & LPT), I have 3 ports, one of which is the “Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM14)”. If I get the properties of that item, I get a dialog with 4 tabs: General (not much to configure, it says “This device is working properly”), “Port Settings” (what I described in a previous message), “Driver” and “Details”.
On the “Details” tab there is a lot of read only information.
On the “Driver” tab, there are 5 buttons:
- Driver Details shows that I’m using 2 files: ser2pl.sys and serenum.sys, the first one from Prolific, version 3.0.1.0, the second one from Microsoft, version 6.0.6000.16386
- Update Driver… (brings me to the page to change the driver of the adapter)
- Roll Back Driver (disabled)
- Disable (well, I don’t think that will help)
- Uninstall (I don’t think that’ll help either).
I still can’t find those latency and buffer size parameters…
I wonder if the cable is bad? You are using the serial data cable for every failed attempt right?
Hi Vincent,
I suggest you break the problem up. Find a PC WITH a serial port, and get it working on that (mind the cables). THEN go back to trying the USB/serial dongle.
Alan KM6VV
If you want to see if your serial cable is working, connect the tx and rx pins together (maybe with a 10k resistor in between). Open hyperterminal and see if you can send/receive stuff that you type (make sure echo is turned off).