So, I’m enjoying the Rover and all, and am looking at adding some servos to do some pan & tilt stuff - I have the DFRobot I / O Expansion Board for Arduino v5, and I see the servo scew terminals - are those any different than just using one of the many 5v/gnd pins, and then just use one of the analogs for control? Is this so I can use independent power for the servo if I need to?
Also -it took me a while to find this -(hint there should be a link on the product page) but here is the spec sheet for the I/O board in case it helps anyone else.
Also. ON the Rover 2 board itself - I can’t determine what the pins near the encoder jumpers are ‘for’ - can I read/write them, what exactly are they. I’m also not clear exactly what the encoder change does? So is it possible do a little truth chart on with the jumper placement and effect. (thought I could unjumper them and be able to upload code to the board while the i/o board was attached - but that is not the case, and it’s such a pain in the ass to take the i/o board off everytime I change the code that I soldered the xbee headers on - which introduced the xbee1/xbee2 thing to upload code - LOL).
Correct. For example if you were powering drive motors at 12V and you wanted to use a 6V battery to power servos, those screw terminals would allow you to do that. If the servos don’t consume a lot of current, then you can power them from the Arduino’s 5V line.
Those are for the optional encoders. The signal pin is connected to analog pin 0 on one side and analog pin 1 on the other. If you are not using the encoders, then the jumpers don’t affect you.
The jumper connects the signal pin to the corresponding analog pin. Removing the jumper disconnects the encoder. Alternatively, you can use those three pins connectors for analog sensors - just make sure the connections are correct.
it’s such a pain in the ass to take the i/o board off everytime I change the code that I soldered the xbee headers on
If you add the jumper to pins 3 and 4 (A0) then the encoder is connected to pin A0 on the Arduino.
If you add the jumper to pins 4 and 5, then the encoder is not connected.
Then you can leave the jumpers wherever they are.
Nothing
Disconnects the pin 6 from A0, and on the other side, disconnects pin 6 from A1.
If you’re not using A0 or A1, then there is no effect for you.
Nope.
The three pins (1, 2, 6) were to be able to easily connect the three pin encoders to the board’s A0 and A1 pins. However, we did not want these two pins to be permanently connected to these pins, hence the jumper.
Ok, sorry to be dense here, but there are 6 pins (on each side).
1
2 3 4 5
6
Are you saying pins 1 2 6 are for an optional encoder?
Separately I’m still not at all clear on what 3 4 6 are for?
Jumpering 3-4 is the default how does that affect the rover? I’m not using A1 or A0 in my code; and the motors are tied to digital pins 5-8
Jumpering 4-5 does what?
Removing the Jumper does what?
By what I mean what are the effects? For instance if I have the IO board attached, what happens?
I’ve got a motor shield from sainsmart that I’m planning trying out - do the encoders have anything to do with swapping shields? Thanks for all the help.
