Problems w/ Servotor32 2.0 firmware

Hexy Questions, Problems and Suggestions
#1

I just upgraded to the 2.0 firmware, and now I seem to have a couple of problems I didn’t have before.

(note I upgraded to 2.0 since I just started messing with the ultrasonic sensor, I don’t know if the issues are related to that, but Hexy exhibits all of the behavior below without the ultrasonic plugged in).

Suddenly, I don’t seem to be able to use batteries to power the on-board logic. No matter whether I have a 9V, 4-batt, or 5-battery packs plugged in to the logic port. Where I originally would get a power light even if I just plugged in a battery pack on the servo port, now I get nothing. I think my battery side power must not be working, but I’m not sure how a firmware update could cause that?

Plugging batteries into the servo side, gets the small “jerk” from some of the servos, as though they are getting power. But this still doesn’t activate the servotor32 power led.

With a 5-battery pack plugged into the servo port and the usb hooked up, I can get Hexy to do some moves, but others are incomplete or have problems. For instance, belly flop seems to have problems (4/6 legs move to the flop position, reset seems to work OK). I re-flashed the 1.7 firmware, and my problems with bellyflop cleared up, but I still can’t power the servotor32 logic using batteries.

I may have had a 9v plugged in to the logic side at the same time as the usb cable during the update. Could that have fried the Servotor32?

Any debugging ideas/suggestions?

#2

Sigh, I just checked the voltage at the 4-pin ultrasonic header (.81v). Double-checking at the output to the voltage regulator, and I find the same thing. Could I have fried the regulator by hooking up the ultrasonic backwards? Or even just hooking it up at all?

#3

Yes from what you are saying you might have fried it, the reason can be the pluging the ultrasonic in the wrong way since i fried one of my arduino boards in the same way.

#4

Can anyone give me the exact part for the voltage regulator? I know it’s a Micrel MIC5205, I’m assuming it’s a MIC5205-5.0BM5, but I wanted to confirm.

If anyone has good enough eyesight to read the code on the chip, please let me know. My vision has apparently gone far enough that I can’t focus that close anymore…

-Sandro

#5

We use this chip:
digikey.com/product-detail/e … ND/1979782

Can you see the identifying marks on the back of the chip? The letters should be like MB96 or something. If they are different from that, and it is actually a MIC5205, that would be a major problem with our factory that I would need to discuss with them. That chip has a much lower current rating, and isn’t stable with the ceramic capacitors we use.

#6

I never did manage to read the marks on the chip, but I assume it was the MCP 1802T.

For the record, I just replaced regulator, and Hexy is back to his wandering ways :slight_smile: