New Boe-Bot, No Green Power Light, Computer doesn't recognize a Basic Stamp, he

Mark S.

I recently bought a Boe-Bot for my daughter (USB version #28832, with a Basic Stamp 2). She put it together and successfully got the Boe-Bot to accept various programs.·Apparently she did not push the Basic Stamp 2 all the way into the socket. It fell out, and when·she put it back in (with it inserted all the way into the socket) the unit no longer worked. She is fairly sure the power was off when she reinserted the Basic Stamp 2. Now the unit does not work. When we push control-R we get a message saying that no Basic Stamp can be·found. The green power light no longer comes on, and the heat sink on the voltage regulator gets quite hot. (I'm not sure whether it was getting hot before.) When the USB cable is connected, the colored lights (blue and red?) flash just like they did before the unit malfunctioned.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Mark S.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

Are you sure the Stamp isn't plugged into the socket backwards? Compare its orientation with that in the documentation.

-Phil

Mark S.

Thanks for your suggestion, but it is not in backwards. The Stamp is correctly oriented, with the largest IC at the bottom nearest the edge of the board, just as in the diagrams in the manual.

Thanks again, and best wishes,
Mark S.

MSDTech

You have a short somewhere on the +5volt curcuts. Look over all the leads to make sure one is not accidently touching something it shouldn't and that one of the leads isn't crossed into another hole on the socket.

Mark S.

MSDTech:

Thank you!! That was it. Two of the lead wires on components installed in the bread board were touching. Now that they are separated, it is working again.

Do you have any suggestions for how to make sure lead wires don't touch? On some of the projects it seems that the bread board gets crowded, and the long lead wires are not so easy to keep apart. I wonder if anyone uses plastic sleeves on the lead wires.

Thanks again.

Best wishes,
Mark S.

PJAllen

Mark S. said...
I wonder if anyone uses plastic sleeves on the lead wires.

Insulated wire?· Yes.· (By all means, get some.)

Mark S.

Yes, I had heard of insulated wire, and I have lots and lots of it. What I was talking about was whether anyone uses plastic sleeves on the lead wires that are part of the LEDs and infrared sensors and resistors, etc. that are used to make the Boe-Bot projects. The bare lead wires are sometimes rather close together on the breadboard. I suppose black electrical tape could be used to insulate the leads, but that doesn't seem very elegant.

Mark S.

Forrest

Small diameter heat shrink tubing works well for insulating closely spaced components. In this case, there's no need to shrink it. Radio Shack sells it locally for $3.99 www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102875&cp=

Teflon tubing also works well - but it's expensive. A 100 foot roll is nearly $100 search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=ATFT20018-100-ND

Mark S.

Thanks!

Beau Schwabe

"black electrical tape"? ... "heat shrink tubing"?...··· just use a stripping tool to "borrow" some of the insulation off of a piece of·insulated wire that you won't be using.· 22·AGW usually works pretty well.· Just slip it right on.


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Beau Schwabe

IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.

Andy Fox

Or just trim the lead wires to shorter lengths. I've seen lots of breadboards jammed full of parts with all the resister, capacitor and LED leads crossing all over. Often you don't need the full length of those leads. Trim them down to shorter lengths and sometimes it can also be a matter of arranging the components so their leads can be short and don't cross. Just some ideas.