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All built and ready for testing — Parallax Forums

All built and ready for testing

Tony 4dTony 4d Posts: 45
edited 2015-01-05 08:20 in Robotics
Ok I built my activity bot, and double checked all the connections. Ready to start testing. Any suggestions? I still don't know if my Mac's 10.6.8 OS WILL SEE IT, but I'll soon find out. If it doesn't communicate, I can't hurt a thing right? I remember reading somewhere NOT TO PLUG IT INTO USB WITHOUT INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE. I attached an image. you can leave the batteries in while being connected to usb right?

IMG_4439.JPG
IMG_4439.JPG
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Comments

  • Tony 4dTony 4d Posts: 45
    edited 2015-01-04 09:16
    ok, I went ahead and plugged in the USB with no batteries. I get a power light, and p26, and 27 LED's flash. If I run the Hello World program in the terminal it just seems to crash, then the terminal window pops up with just a flashing cursor. Are the two LED's suppose flash? Switch is on setting one. Thanks.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2015-01-04 09:39
    Good to hear the mechanicals are set, but I am Windows, can't help with software.
  • ElectrodudeElectrodude Posts: 1,644
    edited 2015-01-04 09:42
    You can definitely have both USB and batteries at the same time. In fact, I wouldn't recommend only using USB power - it often causes problems like this due to lack of power. Does your problem go away if you also plug in the batteries?

    What do you mean by "it seems to crash"? Does it simply do nothing (besides the terminal opening) or does it print garbage all over the screen? If there's garbage on the screen, then you're baud rate is wrong. Or does the compiler or loader complain? (but then the debug window probably wouldn't come up)

    I'm pretty sure OSX comes with FTDI USB drivers, although you can also download OSX drivers from FTDI's website. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two drivers, or if there even is any difference. If you can program or even identify your chip, then your drivers are fine.

    The warning about not plugging in the device until you've installed drivers is because Windows does silly things when it can't find drivers instead of just admitting that it doesn't know what to do and giving up. You should be fine on OSX.
  • Tony 4dTony 4d Posts: 45
    edited 2015-01-04 11:34
    Hi, I can't remember the exact OS ERROR, but it was some kind of a major system crash. I went ahead, and installed everything on my 3.06 12 core Mac Pro with 32gigs of ram, and it ran the "Hello World" program using the terminal just fine. I Then ran the p26 light blink, and that ran fine. I changed the program to light the p27 LED, and changed the timing duration, and all that seems to run fine. One of the main reasons I wanted to use my iMac, is because that computer is on my desk with my scope, multimeter, and all my electronic hobby stuff. It only has 3 gigs of ram, but it should run Yosemite ok for this and my Arduino. I may upgrade the OS on it soon. I guess now I should calibrate the servos right? Made a really stupid move by not installing the ping bracket I bought during the build. I may now have to take a ton of it apart again to get it on. Damn! So my guess is Mac OS 10.6.8 is incomparable with the Simple compiler.
  • ElectrodudeElectrodude Posts: 1,644
    edited 2015-01-04 23:19
    Wait, your whole OS crashed or just SimpleIDE or something? Can you repeat it and give me a description or screenshot or logs or something? SimpleIDE and PropGCC both can be made to work on OSX 10.6.8, but I have no idea if you have the right version of SimpleIDE for 10.6.8. OSX started getting weird at version 10.7, and a lot of programs that run on >=10.7 don't run on <10.7 and vice versa. What version of SimpleIDE are you using and which version of OSX was it compiled for?
  • Tony 4dTony 4d Posts: 45
    edited 2015-01-05 08:20
    Electrodude wrote: »
    Wait, your whole OS crashed or just SimpleIDE or something? Can you repeat it and give me a description or screenshot or logs or something? SimpleIDE and PropGCC both can be made to work on OSX 10.6.8, but I have no idea if you have the right version of SimpleIDE for 10.6.8. OSX started getting weird at version 10.7, and a lot of programs that run on >=10.7 don't run on <10.7 and vice versa. What version of SimpleIDE are you using and which version of OSX was it compiled for?

    Hi, I used Simple Version 1.01 and drivers used was 2.218 64 bit. My iMac is a core duo2 running in 64 bit. Mac OS 10.6.8.
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