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Digest Number 1268 — Parallax Forums

Digest Number 1268

ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
edited 2002-06-15 17:25 in General Discussion
>Hey, first off I am pretty new to this software. I am building a
>self guided robot. I have a BS2 and am controling 4 rc motors with
>the stamp. I am using four SRF04 sensors to guide it. One sensor
>for each motor. Simple right? Well first using the pulsin pulsout
>commands, I only got two of the four sensors to work. The third did
>nothing, the fourth locked on high and kept its motor goin
>constant. So then I switched the pulsin with rctime like it said in
>the sensor booklet. That got the thrid one workin. Now I have
>three sensors working without a problem. As soon as I hook up the
>fourth it locks its motor on high. I have tried a bunch of things
>like switching pins on the stamp and software, adding delays still
>nothing. I have limited knowledge about this and was hoping someone
>could help. Thanks

Swap the bad sensor with one of the good ones. If the problem moves
with the sensor, it's a bad sensor, replace it. If the problem
doesn't move, then it's in the connection between the sensor and the
stamp, or the software.

Almost certainly, you've just blown a sensor, they are fragile, in
particular in rough environments (mine were in a battlebot). There
are three main failure modes:

* the transmitter fails (listen carefully, no click = transmitter failure)

* the receiver fails (you hear a click but the response line stays high)

* board failure. When this happens, powering up the board makes it
get quite hot, quite fast (at least in my experience).

If you have multiple bad sensors, you can sometime desolder the
transmitters and receivers, mix and match, and build a good sensor.

Best
R

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