Arduino, Firefly, Servo not communicating - arduino

I am trying to control 2 servos using firefly. I had it working (proof) and now it doesn't seem to work...
my setup is as follows:
- Arduino Mega 2560 R3
- Arduino sensor Shield V5.0
- 2 standard servos (plugged into pins 9 and 10 in the sensor shield)
- 7.5V wall power supply
- USB cable to computer
I'm running Rhino SR 8 on a 32 bit Windows Vista machine
I have Version 0.9.0014 of grasshopper (the latest) and Firefly_Build_1.0067 (also the latest)
I have flashed my Arduino board with the latest firefly firmata (updated September 10th, 2012)
I have checked that I am using the "MEGA write" box
I have got the right bits going to the right pins and I have checked that they all have "servo" ticked instead of "digital" or "pwm"
My servos and board work perfectly well with the normal Arduino software, but just not any longer with firefly.
The port shows correctly as COM 4 and opens fine in firefly.
When I move the slider to control the servos, the TX light is on and the RX light flashes, but no servos move...
(to confirm: everything works with the sweep example in arduino, so I have eliminated power and wiring issues)...
Any ideas what might be the problem?
I've tried re-installing, switching off and on many times, changing cables, trying a different board (also doesn't work any more with the duemilanove), trying all pins on the shield, trying one servo without the shield, trying one servo with the shield, lots of googling, lots of searching forums, unblocking the firefly installation files in explorer, lots of things... I'm all out of ideas... And very confused as it was working just a few days ago... Am I just missing something really obvious or could there be an issue with the software at my end?

You should try to connect a resistor and LED to the signal port of the servo's, that way you can see if the servo's actually receive the signal or not.

Related

atmega32u4 Failed to enter programming mode

I have designed a custom board using atmega32u4 with a few other components (Such as RTC, memory and etc) but left them empty to test if the microcontroller can be programmed. After just hand soldering the microcontroller and the necessary capacitors and resistors, ATMEL Studio can't read device signature.I'm using AVRISP MKII. This board was inspired by ARDUINO ProMicro in design. The things I tried to solve it:
Measure all 3.3 volt supply lines and all of the grounds. (They all correspond with PCB and schematic)
Checked SPI lines to see if microcontroller receives commands from the programmer by using oscilloscope.
I tried removing the 16MHZ crystal, still the same.
I reflowed the microcontroller since it is a QFN type (atmega32-MU package) and I have a few via holes under the micro for flux to come out.
I have properly washed the board after reflow.
I have AREF grounded with a 0.1uF capacitor and !HWB pin (PE7) is left empty. I didn't ground it.
I tested the programmer with an actual promicro board and it programs fine.
I think I'm missing something but I don't know what... I'd be grateful if you guys could help me. Attached is the schematic of the circuit.
The micro controller RESET is indicated by MICRO RST on pin 13. That RESET on PB4 is for another device which is not populated yet and left empty, I checked Pin 13 with Oscilloscope and it seemed working fine and going to zero at the first moment of programming. Also MISO and MOSI and SCK were sending signals to the relevant pins.
Thanks
If you are programming the board with ISP you have to connect RESET to the programmer. otherwise the controller could not be programmed!
Image from microcontroller.net
It seems that your RESET is on PB4 but for programming it should be connected to RESET of uC.
So, I realized the problem after almost a month! I had removed the 16MHz crystal from the circuit and this caused the problem with programming. Now, after placing the crystal the program is successfully uploaded to the ATMEGA32U4.

Getting two arduinos to interact without wiring them together

Okay, I've been working on this project for months with this being what has stopped me, heres the situation.
I am making a glove that can move a robot arm. The glove has an Arduino Nano iot 33 attached. The board measures the orientation with the built in imu, and sends it to my laptop (will be a raspberry pi in the future) through a usb cable. Also connected to the laptop is an Arduino Uno r3. This board is what makes the robot move (the servos are wired to it and I attached a display that shows the orientation of the glove here). I pondered how to make the Arduino Nano communicate to the Arduino Uno for a while, and I settled on keyboard presses. The Arduino Nano would press certain buttons based on its orientation and the Uno would wait for them to be pressed to move the robot. Turns out that after over 1000 lines of code, the Arduino uno can't use the keyboard library, and I'm stuck again. Is there a better way to go about this?? or is there a way to get the Arduino uno to get keyboard commands (I'm sixteen, tryin to save for college, I know theres a way to buy something to bypass the boards chip, I've already spent quite a bit on arduinos and PLA and such, and if im gonna buy something I want to use it again, please keep that in mind)
How would you have gone about this? How can I recover this project? Please help me...
this is an amazing project.
Great idea the link over SerialUSB, but it is very very slow...
You should use a radio transmitter like this.
Else, there is a great tutorial for communication using Bluetooth master & slave (warning: the post is in Italian).
If you still want to use SerialUSB, you should use a program that reads input from Nano and send a hex. code into Arduino Uno.
Library for serial communication with java or ruby.
Library for serial communication with Arduino.
I hope this can help you. Good luck!

PWM/PPM Output misses some edges

I am using ESP8266 (NODEMCU 3.0 or something) to make a quadcopter. Ive connected ardu pro mini to RC receiver so I am reading PPM values from it. Pro mini sends data with tx to ESP8266. ESP reads it with software serial with 115200 baudrate. I am communicating with MPU9255 (Waveshire) via I2C either.
My problem is that I cant fully controll my brushless motors. When I was using arduino instead of ESP8266, servo library was the best and reliable. But ESP's servo library is different, since its not AVR, and problems occurs. First of the servo library didnt want to work on most frequencies. I mean default is 50Hz (20000uS) and in this state ESC of motors did armed but unfortunatelly when changes was fast and short (1250-> 1370 -> 1250) it did miss that change like nothing happnd... This makes my D value in PID controller useless...
Sometimes on 100Hz freq all was working fine, but sometimes not...
When Ive started to use analogWrite only 500Hz was working fine, rest of freq didnt want to arm ESCs.
PS. I am using 3.3V to 5V converter for PPM/PWM pins so I am sure that the signal is fine for ESCs.
PS2. I dont have any osciloscope unfortunately.
The ESP82266 present on your module is a RF transceiver integrated circuit that can handle WiFi communication, both configured as a slave to a microcontroller such as the ones present on various Arduino boards, or as a standalone chip by having it's on-board Tensilica L106 32-bit processor programmed via an external SPI flash memory. If used as a slave, the communication between, for example, an Arduino an the ESP82266 can be done using different protocols such as SPI / SDIO or I2C / UART interfaces. Googling a comprehensive Tensilica L106 user guide on the internet doesn't seem an easy task, and it looks as if some people have already failed to find it. If you're seeking to add Wi-Fi capabilities to your quadcopter the solution I suggest is having the Arduino take control over the servos, motors, etc. and hand off messages via SPI to your ESP82266 module. If this isn't the answer you are looking for, please try to be clearer about it, maybe find someone to do as an English translator for you.
However, if this is what you're concerned about, and you would like to use the ESP82266 module as as standalone solution, please link its built-in processor datasheet and the relevant parts of the quadcopters code that might need debugging.

GSM Module code Not Working On GSM breakout board

I'm in a situation and need some advice.
Scenario 1:
Arduino Uno/Genuino +
ICOMSAT SIM900 Module(http://www.itead.cc/icomsat.html)
(placed the jumpers such that Digital Pin 2 is rx and 3 is TX on the shield)
Code Used: The send receive SMS example code in the arduino website.(
(https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/GSMExamplesReceiveSMS)
Everything Works fine without a glitch.
Scenario 2:
Arduino Uno/genuino +
GSM breakout board(https://www.google.co.in/search?q=sim900A&espv=2&biw=1600&bih=717&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIqd748qb8yAIVYXumCh2s2Aaq#tbm=isch&q=sim900a+gsm+module&imgdii=9zJcFQBaoLAKzM%3A%3B9zJcFQBaoLAKzM%3A%3B7eDw6qGc3qZjMM%3A&imgrc=9zJcFQBaoLAKzM%3A)
Had loads of issues with softwareSeial.h library and ended up cross connecting the default on board rx/tx with GSM board's RX/TX and everything worked fine. (though I didn't liked the fact that everytime during programming I had to change connections to upload a sketch)
code used is from here (http://www.theengineeringprojects.com/2014/06/send-sms-with-arduino-uno-and-sim900d-using-at-commands.html)
Now my Problem:
Since the shields are very costly, I decided to settle on the cheaper boards for my project. But the Code used for the GSM shield was so easy to understand (since the library was doing all the heavy lifting) I tried to use that. I connected Rx of GSM board to pin 3 and TX to pin 2 of arduino and uploaded the same code I used for the GSM shield scenario. But the code won'r work, I tried to tinker a few blocking things like the enable pin code where the shield is brought up etc. but no luck. Can anyone put some light on it, has this been tried before, is it not supposed to work the was i want it to ?
Thanks a lot in advance.

avrdude : stk500_getsync not in sync:resp=0x87

I am using arduino uno r3 board and arduino 1.6.5 on windows 8. When Itried to upload my program on ATMEGA328 microcontroller it is showing:
avrdude:stk500_getsync not in sync:resp=0x87.
help me to solve this error
This boils down to 3 problems usually..
The bootload on the chip is missing (unlikely if you purchased the board from Arduino).
The serial connection between the arduino and the computer is disconnected or interrupted.
You've simply selected the wrong board type or port when programming, and thus the IDE is searching for a signal that the arduino isn't coming back with.
This problem is most likely due to option 3, however it can occur in odd situations especially on the Arduino Micro where the board does all USB comms on chip and can be flooded by main without an appropriate delay to the point it can't communicate with the IDE. However this is just most likely a bad board selection or a bad port selection.
I've tried many things but this worked for me. If you have a working Arduino lying around (in my case Uno) you can use it as an intermediate in-system programmer (ISP).
Follow this guide to first load the ISP sketch into your working Arduino.
Once you are done, for your non-working Arduino, select from the Tools > Programmer menu and choose Arduino as ISP, and set Board and Processor accordingly. To program choose Sketch > Upload using programmer.
Hope this works.
I think the reason that this work is that it will bypass the CH340/FTDI chip, and all those synchronization issue. Given that that is your problem.

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