Steve, I read this a few days ago and jumped for joy. This is indeed good news. It always seems that something so small always ends up causing the most problems.

Before you do anything try, one just more thing. Do a continuity test from pin to pin on that big connector. Maybe you splashed a little solder between them and caused a short.

I'm really looking forward to seeing your final post where everything starts working for you.

Once you get a good and successful tune make sure you save that thing. eek Do the same for each roo.

Hi Dave,

The 15 pin VGA plug and lead is a molded factory made pre-terminated extension lead I bought from the local electronics shop, I simply cut it in half and used the cut ends to connect to all the components. You're still right though, factory made doesn't mean that it cant be faulty. I will buzz between all those cores out and see if there is a problem in the plug itself.

Thanks Dave

Well, no shorts in sight. I buzzed from each pin to all the other pins and also to the metal body of the plug itself. I did this with both the male and female plugs. Looks like EMF is still the culprit

Ok, we can scratch that off the list. Too bad, that would have been easier to deal with.

Hi Dave,

I can finally call this issue "resolved" The problem was definitely corrupted data due to EMF from the motor power wires. I completely rewired the radar section, installed metal shielded plugs and used Category 6A shielded cable and earthed the shield and plugs. Once installed I tested the system, and you wouldn't believe it, I got the same error. at that point I had to just walk away or I was going to explode with frustration.

A few days later when I was in a better frame of mind, I did a bunch of testing and fiddling It seems the only way I could get it to work was to use the shielded cable for the encoder and NOT use the shielded cable for the power cables. If I just used normal unshielded cable on the motor power it worked.... Cant explain it.... it just did. So I rewired the power wires permanently, selected the expropriate Auto Tune...... and off it went. But... the first tune failed half way through so I separated the cables some more and I got a successful tune....Finally

Next problem....., I had issues getting both the waist motor and radar motor to run with my existing ARC initiation script. The bubble lifter worked fine though. The bubble lifter uses a potentiometer and the radar and waist use encoders and need to "Home" when initiated. The problem was that I needed to fiddle with the homing speed and also with the initiation script a little and I finally got it all working. YAAAAAYYYYY

Hopefully this is the end of this issue but It's taken me so long to fix, and tested my patience so often, I'm not 100% convinced its over. I still keep expecting to see that FU@*!/# error light. Fingers Crossed

Steve

Yah! I'm really happy for you and releaved. I've been thinking of you often these past weeks knowing what you'er going through. As you know I've also spent weeks working through Auto Tune issues with the Roo. However if it makes you feel better once the tune was a success and set like I like, it's ben a solid and almost bullet proof system. Now that you've worked through all this I think you and the robot could work at NASA.

Your solution is fascinating and curious. So just to be clear; you had to use unshielded cable for the power and shielded for the signal. When you had the power cables running in shielded cable were they running side by side and close to the signal cable? When you say you separated them to get them to work what were you separating them from? I wish I knew what the actual issue was with the EMF and where it was occurring. If you had to separate the + & - of the power cable to get them to work that should not have mattered. If you had to separate and move the unsheilded +& - power cables away from the signal cables then you were still getting emf interference. Either way it was still bleeding over somewhere. Maybe at a connection point? I hate to keep beating a dead horse and put this out into the universe but all that moving cables could have reconnected a bad wire or connection somewhere. I hope I'm just full of crap on that last statement. It's just nice to know what the actual cause of these things are for the next time something like this happens to us.

When you recover from this traumatic event (LOL) would you be willing to take a few pictures of your wiring setup from Roo to motors to power supply? That is if you don't have him all buttoned up yet.

So I'll keep a positive attitude and be sure this issue is behind you. Thanks for including me in your process. It was great to watch you work through this to success.

Thank you Dave for all your support and help I will add some pictures tonight with explanations. It's such a relief to be able to move forward. I felt I couldn't move forward at all by working on another part of the robot knowing this issue was still there. I must head off to work now ....at NASA

Steve

I know the feeling my friend. I'm glad your free to move on.

Three, Two, One..... Blast Off!