I apologize for the lengthy post, but it's been a long and frustrating journey. Thankfully, there is a happy ending, along with a video for you to enjoy. Grab some popcorn!
This post focuses on robot building, primarily electrical wiring, rather than Synthiam ARC itself. ARC is the robust platform integrated into my robot that facilitates all the magic. However, if there is an electrical issue preventing the robot from functioning properly, ARC's capabilities are limited. Regardless of whether you're working on a complex robot or a simple one, the fundamentals of wiring and powering up are consistent. These include ensuring a safe and adequate power source, using appropriately sized wiring and fuses, and designing clean, efficient wiring circuits. As I've discovered, the more complex a robot becomes, the more challenging it is to maintain clean wiring and diagnose issues.
I recently spent over a month identifying and resolving a wiring problem that arose from upgrades I made to my complex robot. It was a frustrating issue that made my robot appear broken. The problem involved a large chest neon light on my robot that flashes words in sync with sound files. When the robot is silent, the neon should be off. However, the issue manifested when the robot was not speaking, causing the neon to glow and flash on its own.
Previously, this functioned correctly for years, only flashing when a sound file played. But after I made additions and updates to some devices and wiring on the robot, the issue emerged. Initially, I suspected a ground loop was causing stray voltage to infiltrate the neon interface board, triggering the glow. My robot was built using several 120VAC to 12VDC power converters. Intentionally, I had tied the converters' AC-side earth grounds to the DC-negative output of all the converters, which has certain benefits. However, this configuration also makes creating and ground loops easier and finding them harder. My major troubleshooting step (assuming it was a ground loop issue) involved thoroughly reviewing the robot's wiring and isolating any bridges between the AC-side earth grounds and the DC-negative output wiring that powered my devices and lights. I found several of these connections.
While I believe this was a crucial step in properly and safely wiring my robot, it didn't resolve the issue. The glow and flashing of the neon persisted, leading to weeks more of testing and frustration.
To summarize (belatedly), after further testing and observations, I realized the neon's glowing and flashing issue ceased when I disconnected all grounds to the torso's micro switches. These switches are located in the torso and monitor button presses and part movements. In an oversight, I had wired the neutrals of the neon system to the same wiring block as the switch grounds. The torso switches and the neon system were then sharing the same neutral wire back to the converter that powers the neon system. I feel this was allowing stray voltage into the neon interface board and causing unintended glow.
To fix it I simply removed the two neutrals coming from the neon transformer and neon interface board from the shared switch neutral block. Then, I ran a separate neutral from these two neutral wires directly to the power converter feeding the neon system its power. Voilà! Problem solved! What a relief. Easy to fix but hard to find. LOL!
Thank you for reading!
Here's the promised video of my fix:
Hey Dave
Question I know there are several ways to flash lights/leds/neons to voice, what way do you use that work so well. Oh yeah, does it flash even speaking just words not a sound file like lets says a variable?
Thanks
Good morning old friend! It's good to hear from you. I hope you and your loved ones are well.
About my blinking lights. There is a vendor who's name is Tom Wisnionski. He makes and sells a cool little light controller board that runs the torso and upper brain (in the bubble) you see on my robot. He charges about $85 usd for this board. It come as a kit that includes the directions, wires, connectors, light bulbs and diodes needed to wire up a lamp matrix.
Once installed and right out of the box it has one set pattern that mimics the belly light patterns seen on the 60's TV show Lost In Space. The cool thing about this board is that Tom has built in different light patterns and functions that can be triggered by grounding separate pins on the board. A few of the functions are; one that speeds up the chosen pattern, one is a scanner like pattern, one make the lights go dark in a slow fade so the robot appears shut down and still another one is an alternate pattern. I use relays connected to a ground and then use ARC scripts to trigger the relay for the function I want.
This board uses a wiring matrix to wire up and control the many lights on a B9 Robot. A light matrex wiring allow a limited number of transistors and their components to control a lot of lights. They have been using this method in pinball machines for many decades. At first it may sound complex to wire it but following Tom's easy to follow instructions it's a snap.
I have two of these boards wired into my B9 robot. One for the brain and finger lights up in the bubble and the other is for the robots chest lights. Here' a link to Tom's website where he sells the boards:
Wizzes Workshop
Here's a couple pictures of the completed matrex wiring.
As a foot note, there are other B9 builders that have used and programed an Arduino for the light patterns that Tom's board creates. They have had a lot of success using these as a stand alone light pattern board. I don't know much about using or programing Arduinos so I really don't know how to set them up or even integrate them into ARC to control the light functions if even possible.
Hope this helps!