problem with dagu mini driver stopped working

[a_dekmary]

Hi

I've got the Raspberry Pi Camera Robot - Chassis Bundle for my graduation project. it was working fine with the "2014-05-15-dawn_robotics-raspbian" software on ( sd card A) then i installed "2014-09-11-dawn-robotics-raspbian" on (sd card B) also it works fine. But suddenly yesterday when i tried to turn it on the Raspberry pi was working fine the streaming camera was good but unfortunately i cannot move the camera servos and the DC motor it looks like the dagu mini driver is the problem please help me !!


useful information:
- i'm using 6xAA battery also i tried to power from a computer throw usb.

[Alan]

Hi there,

Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear that you're having problems with your robot. Can you try powering the robot on, leaving it for about 5 minutes or so and then navigate to ROBOT_IP_ADDRESS/logs.html and send me the output?

It is possible that power is causing a problem if your batteries are getting flat. What kind of batteries are you using? Are they rechargeable?

Cheers

Alan

[a_dekmary]

This is the log file you asked for


Main Log
DEBUG:tornado.general:sockjs.tornado will use json module
INFO:root:Starting web server...
INFO:root:Read 0X0 0.0
INFO:root:Expected 0XACED 0.29
INFO:root:Unable to connect to correct firmware, uploading...
INFO:root:No file copy needed
DEBUG:root:Building sketch in dir /root/.ino_uploader/mini_driver_firmware
DEBUG:root:Trying to upload /root/.ino_uploader/mini_driver_firmware/.build/atmega8/firmware.hex
DEBUG:root:uploadResult = 1
INFO:tornado.access:200 GET /logs.html (192.168.42.15) 111.17ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/jquery.js (192.168.42.15) 32.58ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/sockjs-0.3.min.js (192.168.42.15) 14.74ms
INFO:tornado.access:200 GET /robot_control/info (192.168.42.15) 20.85ms
Ino Build Log

i'm using regular alkaline batteries non-rechargeable

thank you


Abdullah

[Alan]

Hi Abdullah,

Yes that's the log. The section that says

INFO:root:Read 0X0 0.0
INFO:root:Expected 0XACED 0.29

Indicates that it hasn't found a firmware, (it wanted version 0.29) so it will try to upload one. This looks like an older version of our SD card. The latest SD card image (11th September) should give a firmware version of 0.38.

It also looks like your robot could have done with just a bit longer to boot, as after DEBUG:root:uploadResult = 1 another line should appear that hopefully says INFO:root:Read 0XACED 0.29 which shows that the programming really did work and that communication has been established. If it fails then you'll see another line that says INFO:root:Read 0X0 0.0.

Good Alkaline batteries that are fresh will power the robot for a short time, but you'll get much better results if you run from rechargeable batteries (we recommend 2400mAh). You'll get much longer battery life (see this blog post) and the system will be more stable as even though rechargeable batteries have a lower voltage than Alkaline batteries, they're able to provide more current.

Regards

Alan

[a_dekmary]

This time we keep it booting for about 13 min and this the log file we got

Main Log
DEBUG:tornado.general:sockjs.tornado will use json module
INFO:root:Starting web server...
INFO:root:Read 0X0 0.0
INFO:root:Expected 0XACED 0.38
INFO:root:Unable to connect to correct firmware, uploading...
INFO:root:No file copy needed
DEBUG:root:Building sketch in dir /root/.ino_uploader/mini_driver_firmware
DEBUG:root:Trying to upload /root/.ino_uploader/mini_driver_firmware/.build/atmega8/firmware.hex
DEBUG:root:uploadResult = 1
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /logs.html (192.168.42.15) 110.21ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/jquery.js (192.168.42.15) 31.20ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/sockjs-0.3.min.js (192.168.42.15) 14.47ms
INFO:tornado.access:200 GET /robot_control/info (192.168.42.15) 12.00ms
Ino Build Log

btw this time we used usb connection for powering the robot form a computer (battery completely removed) .
as you can see we never reached the last step you mentioned earlier


many thanks in advanced

[a_dekmary]

i forgot to mention that we changed the sd card to the latest version (11-9-2014). Also we will try to get new rechargeable batteries ASAP.

cheers

[Alan]

Hi there,

Really sorry for the massive delay in replying, I completely missed the new posts on this thread.

That's very odd that the log stops there (does pressing F5 to refresh add anything?), it could be that the server is crashing with a more serious problem behind the scenes so it would be good to dig further to see if there's a bug I need to fix.

Can you please log onto the Pi whilst it's running and try the following commands

sudo service robot_web_server stop
cd /home/pi/raspberry_pi_camera_bot
sudo ./robot_web_server.py

This will stop the robot_web_server service and then run it again passing all output to the command line. This way we should be able to see any errors that come out.

I'll check back on this forum post regularly to make sure that I don't miss anything.

Regards

Alan

[a_dekmary]

Hi ,it's ok

this is the log file after refreshing the page twice


Main Log
DEBUG:tornado.general:sockjs.tornado will use json module
INFO:root:Starting web server...
INFO:root:Read 0X0 0.0
INFO:root:Expected 0XACED 0.38
INFO:root:Unable to connect to correct firmware, uploading...
INFO:root:No file copy needed
DEBUG:root:Building sketch in dir /root/.ino_uploader/mini_driver_firmware
DEBUG:root:Trying to upload /root/.ino_uploader/mini_driver_firmware/.build/atmega8/firmware.hex
DEBUG:root:uploadResult = 0
INFO:root:Read 0X0 0.0
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /logs.html (192.168.42.15) 109.16ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/jquery.js (192.168.42.15) 32.22ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/sockjs-0.3.min.js (192.168.42.15) 14.57ms
INFO:tornado.access:200 GET /robot_control/info (192.168.42.15) 9.16ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /logs.html (192.168.42.15) 9.51ms
INFO:root:SockJS connection closed
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/sockjs-0.3.min.js (192.168.42.15) 10.61ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/jquery.js (192.168.42.15) 9.88ms
INFO:tornado.access:200 GET /robot_control/info (192.168.42.15) 7.39ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /logs.html (192.168.42.15) 10.67ms
INFO:root:SockJS connection closed
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/sockjs-0.3.min.js (192.168.42.15) 10.08ms
INFO:tornado.access:304 GET /js/jquery.js (192.168.42.15) 9.47ms
INFO:tornado.access:200 GET /robot_control/info (192.168.42.15) 7.52ms
Ino Build Log


when i tried to connect the Pi to a tv monitor throw the HDMI, it only displayed a black screen, so i couldn't log into the pi.

regards

[Alan]

Hi there,

It looks as if the mini driver isn't responding when you try to program it. This could be an intermittent problem that we've been seeing a bit more of recently, where the bootloader of the mini driver gets corrupted. This means that the hardware is fine, but that the mini driver doesn't respond when trying to upload a new program.

To test whether this is the case, could you try to program the mini driver from another computer please. The steps to do this with a windows machine are

• Install the VCP drivers for your system from this page here. These drivers let your machine talk to the mini driver.
• Install the Arduino IDE (free development environment) from this page here.
• Connect the mini driver to the PC with a USB cable
• Open up the Arduino IDE and open up the File > Examples > Basics > Blink example program
• Tell the Arduino IDE that you want to talk to a Mini Driver by selecting Tools > Board > 'Arduino NG or older w/ Atmega8'.
• Connecting the Mini Driver to the PC should have created a new COM port (usually COM3 I think). Select this using the Tools > Serial Port menu.
• Press the Upload button (arrow pointing right) in the Arduino IDE.

If all this works then you shouldn't get any errors when you upload, and after 20 seconds or so you should see the blue LED on the mini driver start to flash at a rate of about 1 flash per second. At that point, we know that the Mini Driver can be programmed, so if you connect it back up to the Pi and reboot, it should have better luck uploading the program.

If it doesn't work, then please send me the error messages that get printed out.

Regards

Alan

[a_dekmary]

Hi


unfortunately it did not work and this is the error message i got


Binary sketch size: 886 bytes (of a 7,168 byte maximum)
avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00


Regards