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Q: What is the actual difference
in the TA, PA, and XU robot kits?
A: The TA, PA, and XU robot kits ALL have the same parts;
they are just in different stages of the building process.
TA stands for Totally Assembled and means the product is totally
assembled, tested & ready to use.
PA stands for Partially Assembled and means the robot's
microcontroller is assembled, tested and ready to use, but you still have to assemble
the rest of the kit (and do the hacks).
XU stands for eXpert Unassembled and means the product is totally
unassembled, you have to do everything.
Q: What should I use, a Pic or HC11 microcontroller?
A: Although the PIC is a little easier to use, it is
limited in expansion and programming capabilities. An HC11 micro, such as the MTJPRO11
with IC and PROGO (Mekatronix language for beginners), is far superior in I/0, sensing
and control capabilities and allows you to greatly expand your base robot or microcontroller
application with sophisticated programs and additional sensors and motors.
Q: How does the MRC11 compare with H.board?
A: When connected to the MRSX01sensor expansion
board, the MRC11 allows you to control two DC motors with H-bridge motor controllers
(more robust than the H.Board) and two servos with male headers on the board for
easy connection (not available on the H.Board). The MRSX01 supplies 24 multiplexed
analog inputs, with 2 unused, memory-mapped output select lines and 4 unused, memory-mapped
input select lines for connecting input and output devices. The MRSX01 provides a
recharge circuit to recharge NiCd batteries, a 5-bit and a 4-bit digital-to-analog-to-digital
conversion units. These conversions are non-linear, but unique. For example, a 5-bit
digital input will produce a unique 8 bit number which, if desired, can be converted
to the same 5-bit input. Essentially, one analog port serves as a 5-bit digital input
port. The same description applies to the 4-bit digital-analog-to-digital conversion
unit. The MRSX01 also has an 8-bit digital output register whose outputs can be modulated
at 40KHz to modulate Infrared LEDs or other devices. A socket allows you to place
current limiting resistors or short circuits in series with the register's 8 outputs.
A jumper permits you to use this 8-bit output register with or without 40KHz modulation.
The combined MRC11 and MRSX01 boards make a powerful combination hard to beat especially
since it cost $100 less than the H.Board.
Q: How does the robot (or microcontroller) connect
to my computer?
A: The robot (or microcontroller) actually connects
to the MB2325 which, in turn, connects to your PC's serial port. If your serial port
is a 9 pin, you will also need a 9 pin to 25 pin cable.
Talrik Jr. & Talrik Jr Pro Robots:
Q: What is the difference between the
Talrik Jr (TJ) and the Talrik Jr Pro?
A: The only difference is the microcontroller (the
robot's onboard computer). The TJ uses a single chip microcontroller (MSCC11E2) while
the TJ Pro uses a complete microcontroller system (MTJPRO11). Both are very sophisticated
robots, but the TJ Pro has more memory and more expansion capability.
Q: What robot platform should I use to teach to my middle school and
high school students?
A: I sugggest the TJ Pro, which is the most flexible
of the robots. (It is being used with students from 11 to 24 years old). This robot
can be used at many levels of complexity. (The sequence of 9
articles written by Professor Doty in Tech
Directions (Sept. 98 through May 99) will
give you a good idea about the tremendous range of educational options you have available
with the TJ Pro (mechanics,electronics, computer programming, control, physics, biology,
psychology, etc).
Q: What robot software should I use to teach to my middle school and
high school students?
A: I suggest you use the PROGO robot programming
language. PROGO is easy to use and can be learned quickly. Students program immediately
and get instant feedback through the action of a real autonomous mobile robot. There
is no delay between learning and application. The syntax is easy to grasp and apply.
(By the time the students have written several example programs they have covered
all the syntax!) The program is written on top of C, but hides all the funky stuff
that makes C a difficult beginning programming language. The fun thing for the students
is they get ACTION feedback when they make a mistake or write something successfully.
An added advantage is that students can intermingle C commands at will, so you can
easily migrate the programs to C.
Q: If I wish to add more sensors to the TJ Pro Robot,
will I have to purchase special sensors or can I add any kind I wish?
A: For the five available analog outputs you can place
any sensor you chose as long as it meets the voltage-current requirements of the
analog input port. Each port is serviced by a 3-wire header. One pin supplies your
sensor with 5 volts and a second ground. The third pin should be your sensor output
which should never exceed +5 volts and never go below ground. Signals out of that
range can destroy the analog input port. Any signal going below ground can be extremely
damaging.
Q: What behaviors does the A.I. program learn?
A: It learns to avoid colliding with objects. You
can dynamically output the Q-learning matrix on the host computer through a serial
connection if you'd like.
Q: What is the difference between PROICED01 and PROCCED02?
A: PROICED01 works with Interactive C (IC)
which cannot control all robot
enhancements. PROCCED02 uses a C-Compiler and allows you to control all resources
and enhancements (Argos Pan-tilt head with sonar or color camera, for
example) of the robot. Both contain examples ranging from the elementary operation
of one motor to animat.c which programs the robot to perform several behaviors sequentially
(avoid, attract,
& control with IR).
Q: What is the physical size of the MSCC11
A: 2.35 inches by 2.35 inches.
Q: On the servo, there are three wires, which wire is which?
A: The one for signal is the lightest color wire,
followed by power then the darkest is ground.
Q: What kind of glue should I use on the ABS plastic
robot body?
A: Any CA (cyanoacrylate) type glue, super glue, Zap-A-Gap,
Jet-CA these are
available at most hardware or model shops . Do Not use a solvent based glue,
since the parts are ABS plastic and immune to most solvents.
Microcontrollers
Q: I'm having downloading problems. Both MB2325 diodes
stay on all the time; reset does nothing, what's wrong?
A: Diode D2 should not be on. D1 should go on when
you plug the MB2325 into
your PC. With the micro in download mode, as long as you press the reset
button, D2 lights. When you release the reset button, D2 goes off. During
program execution, if you have IO, both lights will often be on.
Q: I'm having downloading problems, downloading
begins to my TJ PRO in ICC11 but then stops part of the way through, what's wrong?
A: Possible sCause: Dirty chip from dirt, air
pollution, finger oils etc. Solution: remove 68HC11 chip with a PLCC puller
and clean the contacts on the sides of the chip by wiping the contacts gently with
a cloth wet with rubbing alcohol or simular mild solvent. Carefully replace the
chip in the socket making sure the cut corner on the chip lines up with the cut corner
on the socket.
Q: How can I get the
MB2325 Comm board to work on my laptop with my serial cable?
A: Consider the following:
1. Be sure your COM1 port is set up correctly: 8 data bits, 1 Stop Bit, No
parity, 9600 baud, no flow of control.
2. The serial cable that connects the PC to the MB2325 communications board
may be a null- modem connection (printer cable). This will not work as it reverses
the
connection of the serial transmit and receive lines. Make sure your serial
cable is a regular modem cable.
3. For normal operation of the MB2325:
- Connect the correct serial cable between the PC and the MB2325.
- Connect the 6-wire serial cable between the MB2325 and the TJ Pro robot.
- Assuming the PC is operating, turn the ROBOT power to ON.
a) Press the RESET button on the robot and release. Now, is the LED D1 ON
and the LED D2 OFF with the above connections?
b) When you hold the reset switch down, does LED D2 come on and stay lit
until you release the RESET button on the robot?
If the answer is yes to both a) and b), the MB2325 board is working properly.
If LED D1 does not light, that means your PC will not supply power to the
MB2325 board. Some laptops will not furnish power to the COM port unless it
is actually sending data. Such laptops will not work with the MB2325 unless
you can disable that feature in software (some can, some can't)
If LED D1 lights, but D2 is also on. Press robot RESET. D2 should go out
when you release the robot RESET button.
If D2 does not light up when you press RESET on the robot, reverse the
6-wire connection at one end only and try RESET again. D2 should light when
RESET is down and go off when RESET is released.
Q: I'm interested in a microcontroller board full
of features, with the capability of allowing me to download my programs to EEPROM
once they are developed (not just SRAM), and I also want to be able to connect
to it with my computer through an RS-232 serial port connector for downloading programs.
I'm wondering what product or combination of your products would be best for the
task. Your MTJPRO11 board looks like it has all the I/O I'd need, but it looks like
it only has SRAM. It would be very helpful if you could give me some advice, as I'm
considering purchasing microcontroller hardware for a robotics project and your boards
look like the best ones.
A: As you imply, you will want SRAM while developing
your program. On the MTJPRO11, we provide for a memory save feature with battery
backup. Depending upon your EEPROM application, RAM with battery backup may be an
adequate replacement. The battery backup is good for several hours without recharging
For our robots this works fine.
Another microcontroller, the MRC11 allows you to split 64K of memory between RAM
and ROM (32K each). Once you have your program debugged and in final form, you could
store burn it into the ROM. If you can find an EEPROM with pin compatibility, you
could replace the ROM with it. However, to get IO you would need to get the companion
card, the MRSX01. These two boards together provide an extremely versatile controller
with lots of IO.
Q: Does the MRC11 mated with the MRSX01 offer anything
more than 8 digital outputs? I'm asking this because a robot that can see all
but do little isn't worth much, and I'm looking into your microcontroller for a robotics
project where I'd like to use many devices with digital outputs like stepper motors,
LEDs, etc, (in addition to sensors, of course), but I like your PWM outputs because
(if I'm reading this correctly) you have the hardware to do it, and I wouldn't have
to eat up processor time in my program with it.
A: In addition to the 8-bit digital output port, the
IO Header supplies to digital output select lines OS2 and OS3 as well as two digital
input select lines IS2 and IS3. These select memory addresses FFBA and FFBB (Motorola
IO is memory mapped). Externally, you can hardwire an 8-bit register to be enabled
by each select line, yielding an addition of 16bits of output and 16bits of input.
(Refer to the TALRIK Assembly Manual and the TALRIK Users Manual for more details.
These can be downloaded free.) I recommend using the PWM of DC motors over steppers
in wheel drives. Steppers are power hogs. In other situations, steppers may prove
superior, but, again, power is a concern.
Q: How much soldering does the intermediate Talrik
II kit (TALRIKPA) require?
A: If you purchase the Talrikpa (circuit boards
assembled & tested), the soldering job is roughly as follows for the wiring:
12 three wire cables, 6 soldering points, 3 at each end for a total of 72 solder
joints.
35 two wire cables, 4 soldering points for 140 more. Odd solder job here and there.
Total around 225 or so solder points.
Q: When using the 115kbps high-speed downloader on
my new computer, I sometimes get a "Bootload failure (acknowledge mismatch)".
Also, when using the slow PCBug11 downloader I get failures also.
A: It seems that on some Win95 computers the serial
port is either in conflict with other peripherals or is being interrupted by another
process. So far there is no clear solution for this other than possibly creating
a hardware profile in Win95 that shuts down all extra cards and peripherals (this
would require re-booting every time to use the HSSDL11. If you use the auto-download
feature on the HSSDL11 then every time you press the reset button it will download
the program (this makes
trying multiple downloads almost painless). For using PCBug11 without errors you'll
probably have to re-boot under DOS.
Q: I used the BUFFALO MONITOR to test the ME11 board
memory using the command BF (block fill memory). The memory on the ME11 board could
only fill from the address 8000 to CFFF (equivalent to 20K not 32k). What's wrong?
A: It sounds like your buffalo and your SRAM are conflicting.
You have several options:
1. Disable Buffalo and the onchip memory and use PCBUG11 to do downloading and debuging.
This will free up all of the SRAMs 32K
2. Place an inverter in the PB7 line going from the HC11 to the 74HC10 this will
re-map your SRAM into lower memory. (But: IC from MIT will no-longer work on your
board and you may have some interesting conflicts with our IO space on the board,
and memory mapped IO may not work). Note that On-chip memory ALWAYS has priority
over off chip memory.
Q: How do I access the 32K of external memory using
PCbug?
( PCbug11 says that it is in bootstrap mode using the internal memory. When I
try to do a mm (modify memory) command in the assumed address range of the external
memory (i.e. $8000 - $ffff), it tells me that it is bad memory)
A: In PCBUG11 you must do a software switch to expanded
mode do this by: mm 103c
E5 then you can access the expanded memory. Note: The High speed downloader (HSSDL11)
does this for you and is 10X faster.
Q: How do we control robobug's walking motion?
How can we make it move forward, backward, left and right? Is the MSC11 enough to
do these 4 basic movements?
A: Yes, the object code that comes with the robot will
do those functions.
Q: Can we make the Robobug walk slower or faster?
A: The servos that are included with the robot are
driven at max speed to the set point. This is how the servos are manufactured. To
control speed would require a more expensive DC servo. In theory, you could convert
the servos to do this, but that is not a supported function for ROBOBUG and you would
be on your own. (Personally, I do not recommend it for the ROBOBUG servos because
of their nonlinear response when converted to dc-servos with Mekatronix's trademark
servo hack).
Q: How are the robobug legs on rough terrain?
A: You have to be careful, since ROBOBUGô's legs
can snag on carpet, catch on chair and table legs and other room hazards and you
do not want the strong servo motors to cause damage to either ROBOBUGô's leg or leg
drive servos themselves. For robot safety, the robot should walk only on hard smooth
surfaces or
tightly woven rugs.
Q: What is the best way to add more processing power
to the robobug?
A: The best advice is to leave the MSCC11 and low
level bug control intact (Otherwise you are wasting years of engineering development
in order to "reinvent the wheel"). Instead add a board such as the MTJPRO11
to the bug.
- DO NOT REPLACE THE MSCC11 WITH THE MTJPRO11, RATHER, USE BOTH TOGETHER OPTIMIZING
ON THE FEATURES AND CAPABILITIES OF EACH PROCESSOR.
- Connect the MTJPRO11 to the MSCC11 through the high speed synchronous SPI (Serial
Peripheral Interface). (Refer to the Motorola HC11 Reference Manual
on how to program the SPI). Develop a serial protocol on how to communicate
information between the two controllers. Most likely you will make the MTJPRO11 the
Master and the MSCC11 the slave processor.
- Write programs for the MTJPRO11 that send walk commands to the MSCC11 controller
and reads the sensors attached to the MSCC11 controller through the SPI. You can
also attach more sensors and actuators to the MTJPRO11 controller itself. Those,
of course you would read directly from the MTJPRO11.
Q: What can I do with the robots and microcontrollers
you have?
A: Wow! So many things, and so little webspace to
put it in... It's basically only limited to your imagination and programming. You
can create anything from a roaming pet to a drink serving butler, it's up to you!
For a list of ideas or school projects,click here
Q: What's the quickest I can get product?
A: Next Day Air is the quickest, but boy is it expensive!
Normal shipping time is 5 to 10 working days. In house rush shipping is $15.95 more
and ships 2 to 4 working days.
Next day Air is $35 more (and up depending on weight).
Copyright 1999, 2000 by Mekatronix, Inc. Permission will most likely be granted to
duplicate for non-commercial use if you send a request to tech@mekatronix.com.
Start over at the Mr Robot Page by Clicking Here.