BoeBot and EB500 with microsoft robotics or anyhting

mikediv

Hi guys I bought the BoeBot EB500 blue tooth kit a while ago with my BoeBot I just dug everything out and I am trying to get something to work
with no luck Microsoft no longer supports parallax!!!! so I down graded to an old version 1.5 and it has parallax in there but nothing will work
does anyone have any software for the EB500 that will work?? my blue tooth has found the control card s I am pretty sure it is working but I would like to actually get to run it remotely I have tried to search the forum and found others are having the same problem with microsoft robotics
but I will take anything just so I can see how the interface works
thanks guys.
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Steve Nelick

I have software for communicating with your Boe Bot from your PC. The program uses the Bluetooth eb500 on the Boe Bot.

You can send commands from your PC to the Boe Bot, like go forward 10 inches, turn right 90 degrees. ......

Or, you can directly control the Boe Bot servos with commands like left servo 760, right servo 740, for 5 seconds.

On the PC screen you can watch the·readings·of the sensors that you have on your Boe Bot. The program supports these Parallax sensors: the compass (HM55B), the Ping Ultrasonic mounted on a servo, and the QTI Line Follower Kit.

Let me know if you want to try the software.

mikediv

Yes absolutely please,, Thanks Steve I have been downloading files all night trying to get microsoft to work when I finally got close it ened up I am running vista 64 bit and do not have any of the right drivers for the 2005 version

blittled

I also had problems with Microsoft's Robotic Studio. A very easy alternative is RobotBasic. You can get it at www.RobotBasic.org. Download the Zipped Demos and EXE. Unzip these and goto the RobotBasic_V4.0\RobotBrogrammersBonanza\Chapter17 directory where you will find a basic BS2 driver program. Read the help on how to use the robot simulation commands. I had no trouble with this program.

I have a dashboard written with RobotBasic which works with my Boe-Bot that has a Parallax Servo Controller added.

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What electronics need - MORE POWER!!!!!!!

Steve Nelick

Hi MikeDiv

Let's go over your connection between your eb500 and your PC. As I recall, in the eb500 Bluetooth manual there is a section on connectiong your eb500 to a PC, and there is a section on connecting the PC to the eb500. Which connection did you try? On Microsoft Windows the connection from the eb500 to the PC is considered an incoming Bluetooth COM port, and the conection from the PC to the eb500 is an outgoing Bluetooth COM port.

We are going to use an outgoing Bluetooth COM port in Windows. The PC is going to initiate the connection to the eb500 on your Boe Bot.

Do you have a Bluetooth icon on your PC screen, in the system tray, lower right corner? If you move your mouse over the Bluetooth icon your Bluetooth software might provide you with information on the Bluetooth COM ports that you have availabe on the PC side. You can also get information on your PC Bluetooth COM ports from the Windows Device Manager.

mikediv

Yes that is all working the eb500 has incoming port3 and outing port serial port 4
my problem is I do not have any software in which to actually use the unit , my copy of Microsoft visual 2005 is only 32 bit I have a 64 bit machine when I try to use it
"basicstamp2.csproj" it will give me an error stating DSShost debug is 32 bit not 64 for th elife of me I can not find the right files to make the Microsoft robotics work
I would just like to have a piece of software I can use to communicate with the boe bot , like I stated the eb500 and the boe bot are working I even downloaded the BoeBotcontrol program is BS2 to set up
the communication between the BoeBot and Microsoft. I was hoping for some simple program to try out the blue tooth on BoeBot by issuing simple commands, Vista does not have Hyper terminal
I do have a copy of the book and program Robot Basic but thought that was just an emulation program ???
I saw somewhere on this site a while back someone had a simple dashboard program to just send simple commands to BoeBot and EB500 like forward or Back
I would be thrilled with that but can not find it.

blittled

RobotBasic is a simulation program but with the simple command rCommPort x (where x is the EB500 serial port) it will transmit and receive commands between RobotBasic and the Boe-Bot. The program in the RobotBasic_V4.0\ServoMagazine_ArticlePrograms\Servo200803\Figure1.bas appears to be a simple dashboard. If you use the driver I mentioned in my last post it should work with the rCommPort command. Some things I have noticed is the bs2 driver have the servos reversed so Forward may make it go backwards. If so change rForward 1 from 1 to -1 and the -1 to 1 in the rForward -1. Also you may notice the Boe-bot be very jerky when moving. This is due since rForward 1 only move the Boe-bot 1/4 inch. Increase the value from 1 to 50 or more to get a smoother response.

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What electronics need - MORE POWER!!!!!!!

Jessica Uelmen

Hi mikediv,

Awhile back, Andy Lindsay posted a Stamps in Class "Mini Project" on using the eb500 with the Boe-Bot. It covers setting up a Bluetooth Connection and control through the Debug Terminal of the BASIC Stamp editor. You can find it here.

Hope it helps!

Jessica

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Jessica Uelmen
Education Department
Parallax, Inc.

mikediv

Thanks guys