Went together great, no serious issues.

Hexy Questions, Problems and Suggestions
#1

Since boards tend to get posts from people with issues, I thought I’d put one up saying that everything has gone great so far :wink:

The software was installed on two different Windows 7 64-bit systems.

I got my Hexy last week (Kickstarter) and just finished putting it together. Aside from my own stupid mistakes :unamused: The only real issue I had was that the holes in Step 17 were too big, and that was quickly fixed using a glue gun to fill the holes.

The software installation went fine (although I do wish someone would write ONE simple step by step, it gets hard to follow.

Minor issues:
I installed the Servotor32 driver, then replaced it with the Arduino driver. Is that right??? Which driver should I have?

The plugs need to be put in reversed on the left and right sides of the board. If half your hexy doesn’t work, that’s why. If that was anywhere, I missed it. As a human, I would expect them to line up, but as an engineer I can understand why they are reversed.

The bluetooth seems to work fine on one laptop, but not on the one I’d like to run it on. The one that does not work has another bluetooth serial device on it as well. I need to reboot that machine and see if that fixes it.

Comments:
The V in the serial port monitor needs to be a V not a v. I’m used to command-line like that being lower-case, so I didn’t know why I couldn’t get it to work for a while.

Step 9 - you CAN put the bolts into the connectors and the bolt on the outside, and it goes together a lot easier. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to want to stay together, so I wouldn’t do that. :laughing: I had to reverse all of them after I get everything together. It’s clear in the picture, so I don’t know how I missed it.

To upgrade the firmware, you need to run the Arduino IDE then load the file called Servotor32_Default.ino and hit upload. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to know that.

Pyserial has an installation program you need to run on Windows, you can’t just download the source.

32 bit Python works just fine on a 64 bit system so far.

#2

Nice initiative. I do agree that building the Hexy was really an easy thing. The step by step doc is nearly perfect.

I agree there. These holes are a bit large and this is the only step where I

That’s the main point I’m missing in the documentation. As a beginner in Arduino, I had issues understanding the whole system(and I’m still having, see my thread about red led flashing).

In fact, I would recommend to lower the importance of updating the firwmare in the “Getting started” guide. After all, people having bought the Hexy should have received a working firmware. I’m not sure that beginners should take the risk to brick their Hexy and more experienced user should have no issue doing it. Also, I think that beginners will spend more times playing with PoCoMo and/or using the serial iterface first.

All in all, I find Hexy to be a real pleasure to build and fun to play with. I’m one of the kickstarter backer and I’m glad to have helped starting this in some way.

Tom.

#3

I tried the instructions about loading Servotor32_Default.ino into Arduino (I did not see this in the directions either). After doing that, I connected the board and set the COM port in Arduino and the board is set to Arduino Leonardo. When I try the upload , I get

Binary sketch size: 10,920 bytes (of a 28,672 byte maximum)
Found programmer: Id = “BÚI”; type =
Software Version = . ; Hardware Version = .
avrdude: error: buffered memory access not supported. Maybe it isn’t
a butterfly/AVR109 but a AVR910 device?

What do I need to do to get servotor up loaded on the board?

Thanks

Chuck

#4

Sounds like “Arduino Leonardo” needs to be selected as the board type in the arduino software (“Tools”>“Board”>“Arduino Leonardo”)

#5

Thanks for the suggestion.

All the problems were cleared up when I followed the link to the Arduino troubleshooting guide and then followed the sugestion to turn off Bluetooth on the PC running Windows 7. I did this and the Servotor code was quickly uploaded from Arduino and when I double clicked on PoMoCo.py, it came up and did not report any errors. I now have to spend time with the PoMoCo documentation and finish putting the Hexy together.

I now also have to go back the Ubuntu system to see if I can get things running there. I will post any questions about that process.

Chuck

#6

I had the same problem and no one else on the forum seems to be reporting this.

Want to chip in with what worked for me, in case someone else comes looking for a solution.

-Plugging the USB directly into the PC
-Checking the port under which the Servotor shows up in Device Manager and choosing that in Arduino under Tools>Serial Port>COM 6 (in my case)
-Chosing AVR ISP under Tools>Programmer

Some useful links:
arduino.cc/forum/index.php?topic=126532.0
arduino.cc/en/Guide/ArduinoLeonardo

[quote=“Untulis”]I tried the instructions about loading Servotor32_Default.ino into Arduino (I did not see this in the directions either). After doing that, I connected the board and set the COM port in Arduino and the board is set to Arduino Leonardo. When I try the upload , I get

Binary sketch size: 10,920 bytes (of a 28,672 byte maximum)
Found programmer: Id = “BÚI”; type =
Software Version = . ; Hardware Version = .
avrdude: error: buffered memory access not supported. Maybe it isn’t
a butterfly/AVR109 but a AVR910 device?

What do I need to do to get servotor up loaded on the board?

Thanks

Chuck[/quote]