Page 105 - The Ultimate Palm Robot

Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile
Composite Default screen
Bots / The Ultimate Palm Robot/ Mukhar & Johnson / 222880-6 / Chapter 4

88 The Ultimate Palm Robot

The Pontech controller is now ready to use with your Visor. You can skip
the remainder of the chapter and go on to the next chapter.

Using a Palm VII with the PPRK

As we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the Palm VII has the same
style of hot sync connector as the Palm III, so it will work with either the
Pontech or BrainStem controllers—at least, it should work just fine in most
cases. Consequently, before proceeding with this section, you should skip
ahead to Chapter 5, download some of the sample programs, and attempt to
use them with your Palm VII. If, after attempting to run a program, your Palm
VII does not seem to be communicating with the SV203, you should come
back to this section and use the troubleshooting information here.

If your robot does not seem to be working, first check that all the connec-
tions are correct. Check the wiring between the servos and the controller and
the sensors and the controller. Ensure that each Molex connector is plugged in
the board in the correct orientation. If the robot appears to be constructed cor-
rectly, you may need to check the communication link between the Palm VII
and the SV203.
Some Palm VII devices will have problems communicating with the Pontech
controller because the speed at which the Palm device is talking does not match
the speed with which the SV203 is listening. You can fix that problem by adjust-
ing the communication speed of the Pontech controller.

The Robot Geek Says
Communicating at Nearly the Speed of Light

When two electronic devices are communicating, they need to speak
the same “language.” The Pontech accepts commands over an RS232
serial connection. When the Palm VII sends a message to the SV203, or
the SV203 sends a sensor reading to the Palm VII, the message needs to
be formatted according to the RS232 format. Part of that format includes
the speed, or baud rate, at which data is sent over the wire. If the two
devices are communicating at different speeds, they won’t be able to
understand each other.

P:\010Comp\Bots\880-6\ch04.vp
Monday, May 12, 2003 4:03:11 PM