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Hi David,
Please contact us directly at the store by e-mail to arrange for a replacement chip or return shipping.-WindellThe arc itself probably isn’t harmful– the power supply seems to have survived –but it’s possible that there was an electrostatic discharge at the same time, or that the power supply let through a voltage spike. The crystal or the memory of the chip could have possibly been damaged, although (and if so) that’s not really something that we’ve seen before in this kind of context.
The best option might be to try swapping in a good chip, to see if that helps. If the MCU is not running at all, then it probably can’t be programmed through the FTDI cable.Yup, that sounds like a problem, and not one that we’ve seen before.
So, there are two basic possibilities. Either the microcontroller is running, or it isn’t.If it is not running, that could be due to not being seated properly in its socket, or a bad solder connection at one of several critical points such as the crystal oscillator. Gently take off the LED digits and look at the bottom of the circuit board to see if you can see any signs of what might have gone wrong.If it is running, then it is possible that through static discharge (or something similar) the LED driver chips were damaged, and are no longer producing lit LED segments.Now, how to tell the difference? The alarm and rear-panel “nightlight” LED are independent of the LED segments, and should respond normally if the microcontroller is actually running– although it may be hard to navigate to the right menu places to test those. If you have a USB-TTL interface, you could also try reprogramming the clock (or simply communicating with it via serial) to see if it’s up and running. (You could also try reflashing the bootloader, if you happen to have an AVR ISP programmer handy.)If all else fails, you might consider sending it back to us for analysis and/or repair– again, this is not something that we’ve come across before (unless it does turn out to be a bad connection, as it usually does).If you can run run gschem and pcb, I’m surprised that you don’t seem to be able to find them with which– do I understand correctly that you can only run them from the directory in which the programs live? If so, you may need to manually add the /opt/local/bin path to your $PATH.
The peggy_life.pde program (linked on that page) has a user interface constructed with the buttons, and you can refer to that for an example.
Essentially, they are read like any other button inputs on an Arduino (or Arduino compatible) board: You configure the relevant inputs as inputs with an internal pull-up. Poll the inputs, and determine if they are high or low. If the input is low, then the button is currently being pressed.The Peggy2_bounce program included with the Peggy library has a simpler example as well, for just a single one of the buttons. For reference, that button is S2, on AVR pin B0 (aka Arduino pin Digital 8). Buttons b1 through b5 are on AVR pins C0 through C4 (aka Arduino pins Digital 14 through Digital 18).Which method did you use to install gEDA, and which of the packages did you install?
The “sleep” mode gives a pulsing pattern, similar to the white light on certain apple products when they are “asleep.”
Hi David,
First off, this sounds like a hardware problem of some sort, since the decimal point LEDs should definitely light up in the LED test. The decimal points are driven by pins 11 and 12 of the LED driver U3. Pin 12 is below and to the right of the “O” in “SDO” above U3. Pin 11 is the pin to the right of that.Pin 12 is connected to the upper-right pin of each LED digit on the circuit board (i.e., upper-left, if looking towards the front of the clock), and pin 11 is connected to the lower-left pin of each LED digit on the circuit board (i.e., lower-right, if looking towards the front of the clock). Because these go in such different directions, it seems unlikely coincidence that anything could be wrong at both of those places. That certainly suggests that the problem is at U3.So, check to see if the IC is (was) fully inserted into the socket. Also check to see if both pins 11 and 12 are properly soldered, and to see if there could be an accidental connection (solder bridge) between those points. You may need to remove the chip from the socket– very carefully! –in order to inspect the area under the socket, to see if there is a solder blob down there.If you have access to a multimeter, you might be able to use that as well, to see if those two pins are electrically connected to each other, and to the places where they are supposed to be connected.Can you please say exactly what you are trying to do, and what your configuration is?
For example, which ports on the Diavolino/Uno are you connected to, and are you trying to upload a program, or trying to write the bootloader?The reason that I ask is that you normally care about *either* the listed serial port (which is used for normal “arduino style” programming– through the serial port of the microcontroller) OR the programmer listed in the Programmer menu (which is *only* used for bootloader burning, through the ISP port of the microcontroller).If you are using these things in the “usual” way– through the serial port and not the ISP port –then the speed difference is natural, and a fixed property of the board type. The Diavolino is a derivative of the Arduino Duemilanove, and (for compatibility with the Arduino application) has the same upload speed that it does. You can in principle change this speed to be faster, but you’ll also have to change the bootloader to match.From the boards.txt file:##############################################################uno.name=Arduino Unouno.upload.protocol=arduinouno.upload.maximum_size=32256uno.upload.speed=115200[…]##############################################################atmega328.name=Arduino Duemilanove w/ ATmega328atmega328.upload.protocol=arduinoatmega328.upload.maximum_size=30720atmega328.upload.speed=57600[…]The trouble is that you can use it for *almost anything* that needs two stepper motors, so many of the people using them don’t say much about it.
There are quite a few drawbots, etch-a-sketch machines, and little CNC machines. We’ve also seen a coil winding machine, rotary turntable for photography, and a linear-axis (lathe geometry) eggbot (the “mugbot”) for drawing on mugs. And how about an automated labyrinth maze solver? ( http://buildsmartrobots.ning.com/profiles/blogs/automated-labyrinth-maze )– Yes, running at higher voltage will provide more current, torque, and power to your motors.– In my experience 7.5 degree motors are never all that smooth, but I haven’t actually tried one on the EBB. With 48/steps per revolution native, in principle you can get 768 steps per revolution with the EBB and 16X microstepping.Please follow the directions in the Eggbot assembly guide; the guide tells you which order to put the wires in. If you follow that order, it will work correctly. It’s not foolproof, but it’s pretty darned close. :)
The wire colors on the motor datasheet are out of date; we have updated the product page on our store with the correct wire colors.
