Help! I have a 1 day old dead scribbler! (And miserable son)

David Bayliss

First let me start with all the positives. The scribbler was opened at 7:00AM this morning (13th Birthday gift) and was played with solidly until 4:50PM this afternoon.
All of the demo programs worked flawlessly and by 3 O'Clock the graphical tool had huge screens of code and he had managed to exceed both the number of subroutines allowed and the maximum code size.
He was just beginning to play with basic (cutting and pasting the generated scribbler code) and was doing a 'follow the light' demo.

Halfway through the demo the robot went quiet and wouldn't move. He assumed a program bug and tried to connect back to the GUI. The system claimed the scribbler wasn't there. We diagnosed dead batteries (they had lasted all day) - so put in a fresh set of rechargables. The scribbler is still pretty much as dead as a dodo.

Specifically:

When turning on the scribbler (or pushing the reset button) you get no indication of anything EXCEPT one of the LEDS (the right hand one as you face the LEDS; the one nearest the 'OT' in ROBOT comes on (and remains unflickering).

I have tried 3 sets of batteries (rechargables, alkaline etc)

The normal scribbler upload screen puts up the dialog about 'no scribbler is connected'

If you attempt the observation deck you get a flashing red light (previously it had worked perfectly)

Now if you use 'Identify' from the basic editor you get a loopback of true but echo of false. (For a while it gave true for both but no identification string)

Now I AM using a 64 bit Vista machine - but the scribbler worked happily all day so I don't think blaming vista makes sense.

So - what can I do? The kid loves this robot and it was 90% of his birthday gift - is it fixable? $100 for a good day; even a great one - is a bit steep

David Bayliss

MovieMaker

GET in touch with Parallax Support. They are some of the Greatest People in the world when it comes to helping a customer.

David Bayliss

Done - the scribbler is now working - in case it helps anyone else -

1 - The original problem was that the cable going from the leds/parallel port to the basic stamp had worked loose at the basic stamp end. Fixed

2 - A secondary problem was that one of the three green LEDs refused to work. Called tech support - they were willing to replace it - however I didn't really want to as my son would hate to lose his robot for two mail journeys. The tech support person basically told me how to remove the LED and solder on a new one and promised to 'sort something out' if it went wrong. Well it didn't go wrong (unless you include the fact that I am now having to type one handed having had a fight with the soldering iron) - scribbler now perfect working order.

Conclusion - this is one of the best gifts I have bought my son - everyone is happy - and I have confidense that I bought from the right company.

Thank you very much

David

Whit

David,

First of all, do not panic. I know that this is frustrating, but if something is wrong with the Scribbler, Parallax is top notch and will make it right.

My best guess is also dead batteries. Get some new ones and try again. The red LED on the right near the "OT" in Robot is the Power Light and should slowly blink at low power. All the other issues, no Scribbler connected, no identify and now observation deck would all be consitent with this.

I can't think of anything that you all could have done wrong. If you do get a connection, restore the original program and test it all out.
If you do not ever get a connection even with batteries that you know are good - Call Parallax's Technical Support. The technical support team is available between the hours of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, Monday through Friday at the toll-free number (888) 99-STAMP (888-997-8267).

Good luck - Please report back on how this goes.

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Whit+


"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

Whit

David,

Looks like I missed the other messages. Glad you guys are up and running!

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Whit+


"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

erco

David, it's great to hear that your 13-year-old son is so into the Scribbler. Hope it lasts, many kids these don't have enough interest (or attention span) to do much with it. Whit (who wrote you above) and I are big Scribbler fans, we love to experiment with them and we are happy to help if you need any encouragement. BTW, a lot of the BoeBot material can apply to the Scribbler, too. Especially after Whit and I start talking you into hacking into your Scribbler! So download the Parallax "Robotics with the BoeBot" text when your son is ready for more challenges.

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·"If you build it, they will come."

David Bayliss

Thank you for the encouragement. I have looked at the boe-bot and the microcontroller reference manual. It was the section on music that pulled him into basic for the first time. One of my major tasks will be coming up with things for him to do - whilst he can focus for hours if he is challenged - his tolerance of boredom is about zero.

I have been following your wheel encoder thread - it is certainly interesting - one of the few weaknesses of the scribbler is that the motors do not really have the reproducible precision for neat 'scribbling'. He wouldn't want to lose the LEDs though - I vaguely remember from 20 years ago that there used to be things called 'output latches' - that ought to allow me to drive some of the slower things (such as LEDs) - from fewer pins.

On the subject of scribbling - I don't suppose you have some amazing invention to cause a 'pen up' do you? If I had it I could do a genuine turtle graphics for this baby ...

That said - rather than hacking this bot there is a strong possibility that it will simply get 'passed down' if he outgrows it·(he has three younger brothers)

David

erco

Sounds great. BTW, I kept the LEDs (visible in the video), but I did bypass the 3 photocells to hook up the two encoders. That leaves one unused I/O pin that could certainly control a servo or solenoid to raise & lower a pen... great idea, David!

Edit: Actually, it occurs to me that you could wire up·1 to 3·servos (to raise & lower your pen and do two other nefarious deeds)·in parallel with any of the 3 LEDs without any other mods. Make battery + and - connections with a few voltage-dropping diodes and you're in business. You can still make any of the 3 LEDs high/low without affecting your servo (much) and you can still pulse the pin to drive your servos. The LEDs will flash, but that's OK.



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·"If you build it, they will come."

Post Edited (erco) : 1/15/2009 4:37:46 AM GMT