Here is the info that I just received from dimension engineering: Here is the new software version we talked about: https://www.dimensionengineering.com/software/SetupDS_2015-12-21.exe

To update, after Kangaroo is connected, go to Tools > Update Firmware. Navigate to Kangaroo folder and choose the latest file 2015-10-23. Try the 1k ohm pull-up resistors on the encoder first. You will need one each from channel A to 5V and channel B to 5V.

Charleen Dimension Engineering Support +1 (330) 634-1430 www.dimensionengineering.com

@ castle - to keep an eye on your encoder you can put a 10k ohm resistor through a led to ground on both a and b encoder outputs that go to the kangaroo. This will give you a good indication if your encoder is working the way you expect it to. You will probably need to turn it very slowly to see the pulses but it should be a good indicator to help rule out things when you are in troubleshooting mode. Things like noise should be noticed with the leds, if there is any. Also DE recommends that you have a battery on the circuit for the regenerative power from your mechanism.

Wow, purple! Your right! I totally missed that. The only sabertooth that can run without a battery attached to dump the regen power back into is the Sabertooth X32. Even then you need to chock the regen power with a power resistor. Good catch. That could be why he's seeing the flashing red led on the sabertooth.

Thanks for the "stuff" Castle!

Hey Dave, yeah I'm surprised you did not catch that one. The reason I thought of it is when I had to contact DE, it's the first thing they asked me. The second was can we see a schematic. This kangaroo is really cool, I know you know that too because I have watched some of your video posts. It's a lot of control power for a little cost. I had that red light blinking on the sabertooth too, it was an indication that the voltage of my supply was dropping during load. That's something you have to watch with the wall warts, almost all are unregulated so the circuit voltage will have a huge dip under load.

Ya, totally missed it the lack of battery. I gotta chalk that one up to liquid Christmas cheer. I gotta stop troubleshooting when I'm making merry. LOL. Thanks for catching it.

I mentioned the low volt scenario and flashing lights to Castle a few posts back because I had the same flashing lights when I was trying to tune and then again with my motor was running. DE also told me the same as what you just said; Voltage dropping during load. I got a power supply with more capacity and I that solved a lot of my problems.

Hi guys,

Last evening I soldered in two 1.5k resistors on to the encoder. One is soldered to the A wire and to the red wire which is the 5vdc to the encoder. The other resistor is between the B wire and the red wire. I put all 4 Roo switches to on and connected power from a battery (thanks guys) - it is a fairly large glass may battery - no wall wart. I then conducted a button press teach tune auto tune which went perfectly. i then power cycled and then went to my Hirizontal servo on D0 and moved the mouse but alas / nothing happened. No movement, yellow led is steady, no error blinks - nothing. I then powered off, switched dip 1 on the Roo to off and powered up. The motor immediately went to one end of the tune position and chattered to a stop. When I move the mouse it chatters in both directions but not moving much. So I'm calling DE this morning..

SUCCESS!

Hi guys,

I got it working with the help of Charleen at DE. By the way, she really knows her stuff and is easily reached by phone, I have talked with her at least 6 times in the last 2 days.
The problem with the encoder turned out to be a bad input channel on the Kangaroo.
I had initially done my potentiometer testing on Roo channel 1 and then when I started doing the encoder testing I used channel 2. It would autotune great but when I went to control it from EZ-B nothing would happen. We tried different resistor sizes but still no joy. So I decided to put the potentiometer (which worked) on channel 2, did an autotune but then nothing. Ah Ha - maybe it is the channel? So I put the potentiometer on channel 1 and it worked. Then I put the encoder on channel 1 and VOILA! it worked flawlessly!

DE is shipping me a replacement Kangaroo!

By the way, I am trying to use the two channels independently. I asked Charleen if perhaps I needed to have channel 1 hooked up before I could use channel 2 and she said no - they operate completely independently. You can use just channel 2.

So, there you have it Using an inexpensive encoder from Amazon in TeachTune mode works! My USB-TTL cable is supposed to arrive tomorrow and then I will connect the DEScribe software to this Roo and down load the tune, which Charleen says I can just upload to the new Roo and it will work!

Thanks to everyone for all the help. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Castle

It is a bummer getting something new arrive broken, but what a nice feeling to know you were actually doing everything right and it was just a piece of broken hardware causing all the frustration. congrats on figuring it out. That bit of knowledge about being able to save the auto-tune and load it to other roo's may come in handy for anyone building robots for sale that use this hardware.

Alan