Arm interface board panel

Arm_interface_board

Board containing all the control units and power distribution for the servos in the arms.

Hardware Setup

1. Check and/or solder the clock crystal on the board. Bridge the appropiate pads in order to enable it or make use of the extra two pins.

2. Crimp the connectors for power/i2c and the servos according to the following diagram:

   • Power/I2C:
     5V |||||| GND ]
     SDA|||||| blah ] TODO
   • Servos:
     The connectors on the board are designed to receive a connection that starting with the indexing pin on the left (to the right) look like this:
     • 5V
     • GND
     • SIGNAL\

   Be careful and rearrange the connections before crimping if needed. Also make sure the cables exit the connector in an appropiate direction, to avoid loops.

Software and flashing guide

The board can be programmed with the Arduino IDE but some setup is required.

For boards with the ATMEGA328PB

This is partially the result of a mistake in ordering the uControllers, so the board is not actually designed to fit the chip. Even so it works without much modifications, although one should exercise special care to tristate the pins that are connected directly to power (A & B).

Prerequisites

• MCUdude's MiniCore (and all it's dependencies:)
• Arduino IDE v.1.6.4 or greater

Setup

You need to install extra packages to enable compatibility with this chip in the Arduino IDE.
Add the following URLs to the Additional Boards Manager URLs:

https://mcudude.github.io/MiniCore/package_MCUdude_MiniCore_index.json

This one enables and advanced bootloader and the extra functions in the PB series. For this you also need the latest AVR toolchain (version 1.6.206). Add:

https://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_avr_3.6.0_index.json

to your Boards Manager.\

After you do this you can install the Minicore and update the Arduino AVR boards to 1.6.207 (AVR toolchain).

Flashing

To flash the board you need to use an ISP programmer. The easiest way is to use an arduino as the programmer. You can do this by flashing any Arduino board with the code from Examples>11. ArduinoISP>ArduinoISP. Afterwards you can select the AVR chip from the Minicore boards and configure it for the specified clock, etc. With all options set you can burn the bootloader by selecting "Arduino as ISP" in the Programmer window.\

Sadly with this version of the AVR toolchain, for some reason the flashing does not work out of the box. You require the latest version of avrdude, and the only way is by compiling it from the source.
After you install it the flashing procedure is a bit different. You have to first compile your code, and then using your freshly built avrdude version upload it to your board.

UPDATE: downgrade to avr boards 1.6.23 and install arduino isp on atmega 2560. switch to 1.6.207 and install bootloader.

sudo ./avrdude -Cavrdude.conf -v -pm328p -cstk500v1 -P/dev/ttyACM0 -b19200 -D -Uflash:w:/tmp/arduino_build_XXXXXX/roboy_arm_board.ino.hex:i -F

in above command replace XXXXXX with your build number