Good Morning,
I recently purchased the Devastator mobile tank platform complete with electronics. While I am satisfied with the quality of the parts included I’m having problems with the controller card, Romeo for Intel Edison. I downloaded and installed the drivers and updated the firmware with the latest one. The board powers up fine and I am getting good coms with my computer. I can upload programs onto and they work, for example I can flash LEDS on and off using the Arduino IDE. However when I try to move the motors that are in the tracks they wont go. Iv tested the motors with a power supply and they turn in both directions fine but wont drive from the board. Iv tested with a voltmeter across the screw terminals and no voltage is ever present no mater how I program the output. I believe that the board is faulty and the part controlling the motor outputs is not completing the circuit and providing power to the motor connection terminals, called on the board M1 and M2.
Please could you advise me what to do next as I am very frustrated that I can even get the tracks to turn via the controller board.
Regards Anthony
Hi Anthony,
We apologize for this negative experience. Since this is a kit, many things could cause the issue.
Did you try the car example in the documentation? You can also find it here.
If you did and it still doesn’t work, then there might not be any power reaching your motor controller part of the Romeo for Edison board.
Please remove the cover of your robot and take one or more pictures clearly showing all components (board, wires, connections, jumpers, power, etc.).
You can also add annotations where clarification is needed.
To upload images in your reply, simply go to Full editor mode. See details in the attached image.
Sincerely,
Good morning,
Trying the different source code didn’t make a difference, it would transfer onto the board fine but still no motor movement. As you can see from the photos I don’t have any servos wired up to the board. I only have the power supply from the batteries, which I tested was 9v, and the two motors. They are wired up as per the instruction in the manual. There are no jumpers on anywhere and nothing is touching metal causing a short. I cant see any marks on the components or the tracks that would suggest a failure on the board. Just for your information I am a qualified electrical engineer and have many years experience with repairing industrial controller cards and PLC modules. Is there any specific test you could think of I could preform to narrow down the fault possibilities?
Regards Anthony
Hi Anthony,
Thank you for the quality images and details. We did not notice anything outright wrong with the setup in your pictures.
We have contacted the manufacturer concerning this and we will post again here once we have more details.
Hopefully we will have either one or more tests for you to try out or a direct solution to help resolve this quickly.
Sincerely,
Hello,
When you power the board with the battery? Does any LED light? or just the motor doesn’t work?
Could you measure the voltage VIN port? Is there any power when you power it with 9V battery. And what kind of battery you are using? Dry Battery?
Hello,
As i have already explained, I have power to the board the LEDS light up. When I load the blink sketch on Arduino the LED blinks. If I change the delay in the sketch it responds to any changes I make. I have 9v DC at the VIN terminal. I am using 6 AA batteries, standard 1.5v batteries. The board has the correct new firmware installed and as you can see from the pictures previous the wiring is correct. The motors have been tested on a independent power supply and they move in both directions. There is never any voltage present on the motor terminals no matter what program I use to drive it or how ever i amend the code. My professional opinion is that the board is faulty, the part of the board that controls the motor is not working. If there is not a fix that i can preform I would want the board replaced.
Regards Anthony
Hello,
I suppose that this is a coding problem. Romeo for Edison has two version motor library, which one you are using?
github.com/ouki-wang/remeo4edison
This is new version. And the wiki about this board. dfrobot.com/wiki/index.php/ … U:_DFR0331
Hello,
That’s a really good point, I am currently working away so I am unable to check but I will as soon as I get back.
Cheers
OK. Let me know if you get any progress.
Hello again,
Im using the new library and i have the new firmware loaded onto it but till no movement of the motors when i load any sketch onto it.
Regards Anthony
Hello,
Nothing I try is working, I have installed and deleted every version of the DFrobot.h library I could find and nothing is turning the motors. I can do a digital read on the motor pins and they do go true and false when coded to. I don’t know what else to try I do believe the board is faulty, everything else seems to be working fine.
regards Anth
Grey_Cheng works for DFRobot, and is in the best position to troubleshot. Hopefully he is subscribed to this thread and will get back to you. If not, you can send him a private message, and he should be notified via e-mail.
Hello,
Hopefully someone knows how to sort it out. I have managed to make it work using an Arduino uno board but the amount of additional circuitry needed makes it hard to fit everything in. Would be better if I could just use the one board and keep it all neat,
Regards Anth
