Society of Robots - Robot Forum
Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: Popcorn97 on September 16, 2010, 05:48:44 AM
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Hi,
My axon keeps restarting every few minutes or so. I've got 5 photo resistors connected to an outside power source with the ground and signal connected to the axon.
Its strange as it seems to be working normally until the entire program suddenly starts from the beginning again :S . When connected to a terminal it doesn't print any error messages.
The outside power source is 6V. Would that cause the Axon to restart after a while?
thanks in advance,
Steph
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this might or might not be helpful. I also have 4 servos attached, all powered through the axon. Only 2 are driven consistently tho. By accident i picked up the robot and stopped one of the servos from moving for a split second. this also restarted the axon.
i'm not sure whether that is the problem in the first place or just another one.
Any help / suggestions would be great :)
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Is the voltage regulator getting hot at all?
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6v is way to low for the Axon, the Axon needs around 6.25v or so, better feed it 6.5 + though.
The power drain is way to much at the voltage regulators min input.
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6v is way to low for the Axon, the Axon needs around 6.25v or so, better feed it 6.5 + though.
The power drain is way to much at the voltage regulators min input.
No.
Absolute minimum required voltage is 5.35V. If at any time the voltage drops below this amount, even for a milli-second, the Axon II will reset. The recommended battery voltage is 6V to 7.2V (a 6V 1000mAh+ NiMH battery works great). Maximum voltage at 16V, however most servos will have reduced lifetimes at voltages above ~6V and can quickly fail at voltages ~7.2V+.
http://www.societyofrobots.com/axon2/axon2_datasheet.shtml (http://www.societyofrobots.com/axon2/axon2_datasheet.shtml)
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It very much sounds like an insufficient power supply problem.
What specific servos are you using, and what specific 'outside power source' do you have?
Four servos can easily use 1-2 amps, and if your power supply can't supply that much current, the voltage will drop to compensate. A voltage drop below ~5.2V can cause the Axon to reset.
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thanks guys ;D
i got some better quality batteries which work much better. the ones i had before only gave around 5.5V when fully charged.
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[EDITED]
PROBLEM SOLVED! It was my mistake! The problem was in the power supply... sorry... :D
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Hello to everybody!
I have just got the super Axon 2 and I think it is a beast ;) ... but I am having some problems recently...
As a beginner I am doing the typical tests like "Hello World" using the libraries from WebbotLib to start adapting to the new programming environment.
So as far I understand the program basically follows a sequence routines. First 'appInitHardware' to set up the hardware, second 'appInitSoftware' to set up any other variables in your program and in the end it calls to the routine 'appControl' being the main loop and here it is where the sentence "Hello World" is sent every second to the USB interface.
The program works fine, but after a few seconds the Axon restarts and the sequence of the calling of routines starts again. This is something weird... is not it?
I am pretty sure that it is not a problem from the power supply. Am I doing something wrong?
Here is the code (I have tried with different ones but still the Axon restarts in the same way...)
#include "sys/axon2.h" // I am using an Axon 2
#include "uart.h"
#include "rprintf.h"
//make UART names more sane
#define USB_UART UART1
#define USB_ACTIVATE &uart1SendByte
#define USB_BAUD (BAUD_RATE)9600
// This routine is called once only and allows you to do set up the hardware
// Dont use any 'clock' functions here - use 'delay' functions instead
void appInitHardware(void){
// Set USB_UART to USB_BAUD
uartInit(USB_UART, USB_BAUD);
// Tell rprintf to output to UART1 (USB_UART)
rprintfInit(&uart1SendByte);
}
// This routine is called once to allow you to set up any other variables in your program
// You can use 'clock' function here.
// The loopStart parameter has the current clock value in ěS
TICK_COUNT appInitSoftware(TICK_COUNT loopStart){
rprintf("\nAxon 2 initiated!\n");
return 0; // dont pause after
}
// This routine is called repeatedly - its your main loop
TICK_COUNT appControl(LOOP_COUNT loopCount, TICK_COUNT loopStart){
rprintf("Hello world\n");
return 1000000; // wait for 1 second before calling me again. 1000000us = 1 second
}
some ideas?
Thank you!
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Wait . . . did you sign up a second account? lol . . .
90% of all robot failures are directly related to the power supply. If my robot ever starts acting strange, I immediately break out my multimeter to check the battery.