I am here trying to build the "start here" robot. I am at the very beginning and am a very absolut beginner. I have purchased the kit a week ago (17 august), just for the record (and due to what I am going to say).
Now, it is time to plug in the motor controller. It turns out that my motor controller has 20 pins, whilst the pixcase28 board gives me 16 pins for it. How should I plug it in?
The motor controller has the followings written on it:
That is not a motor driver! Google says it is some kinda inverter or op amp or something. The easiest answer here is that the wrong part was included in your kit. I find this hard to believe, but I guess it must have happened. Could you please grab all the “chips” that came with your kit and tell us what markings you see on each one? --For the record, we are probably looking for one that says, “L293D” on it, but let us know the markings on all the chips.
Contact whoever you bought the kit from. They have included the wrong part.
You might as well carefully read through the list of stuff that was supposed to be included, and make sure you have all the right stuff. That way if they made any other mistakes, you can get it corrected at one time.
I have written to the provider and they replied that they indeed sent me the wrong chip. So now here I am, with everything ready… or at least nearly…
I have a Macbook pro + Snow Leopard, have downloaded MacAXEPad and the USB cable drivers… According to the tutorial I should check the firmware now… but here is the new fancy problem: I get an error message. Basically MacAXEPad looks for the folder “tty.usbserial-0000101D”… when I have instead “000013FD”…
What if I simply renamed the folder?
By the way, when I plug in the cable Mac opens the network connections… does anyone experience the same?
I ordered kit on Aug 23 and I ordered kit on Aug 23 and received same wrong chip as you. Other chips have markings as shown in the kit on Solarbotics page.
Just call Solarbotics and tell them. I have sent them a bunch of pictures too, so they could look at the markings on the chip. I did that because the bill they sent me was reporting the correct motor chip.
They sent me the correct part without paying anything!
Sent Solarbotics an email. They resonded quickly, were aware of the problem, and already had a new chip on its way to me. Great service! My first bot is complete!!!
