need help with ESD200

[Joe]

I bought the Parani-ESD200 from Lemos International, and I'm trying to configure it for use with my RoboBuilder.

I don't have the "RS232 interface jig board" described in the manual, so I'm using a Pololu serial adapter. It and the ESD200 are both powered by a 3.3V voltage regulator, which in turn is connected to a 4.5V battery pack. I don't have an oscilloscope but the voltage output appears steady (and I added a 220 uF capacitor across the output just in case). Then I fired up a terminal program to configure the board (I'm using Mac OS X, so the Windows utility from sena.com won't work for me).

Here's the problem: it worked fine for me at first, until I gave it the UARTCONFIG command. Then it stopped responding completely, even after a large number of powering it off and back on, attempting to connect at both the old (9600) and new (115200) speeds, attempting a hardware reset of the device, and so on.

Here's the transcript of my config session:

Code: Select all

Connected to KeySerial1
at

OK
AT+BTINFO?

000195084773,ESD200v1.1.3-084773,MODE0,STANDBY,0,0,HWFC

OK
AT+BTVER?

ESD200v1.1.3

OK

AT+BTNAME=RoboBuilder BT

ERROR
AT+BTNAME="RoboBuilder BT"

OK
AT+BTINFO?

000195084773,RoboBuilder BT,MODE0,STANDBY,0,0,HWFC

OK
AT&V

S0: 0; S1: 1; S2: 1; S3: 0; S4: 1; S5: 0; S6: 0; S7: 0; S8: 0; S9: 0; S10: 1; S11: 1; S12: 0; S13: 1; S14: 0; S15: 0; S16: 0; S17: 0; S18: 0; S19: 3; S20: 0; S21: 0; S22: 0; S23: 0; S24: 10; S25: 0; S26: 0; S27: 0; S28: 43; S29: 51; S30: 300; S31: 300; S32: 600; S33: 30; S34: 5; S35: 39; S36: 4353; S37: 16000; S38: 0; S39: 1024; S40: 72; S41: 1024; S42: 128; S43: 001F00; S44: 000000; S45: 9E8B33; S46: 000000000000; S47: 0; S48: 2048; S49: 800; S50: 8; S51: 8; S52: 5

OK
ATS3=1

OK
AT+UARTCONFIG,115200,N,1
AT
Connected to KeySerial1
AT
Connected to KeySerial1
AT


The message "Connected to KeySerial1" comes from my terminal program. At the end there you can see me attempting to reconnect several times, but to no avail. The last hour has just been more of that.

To reset the device, I connected pin 4 to ground (while the device was powered up) for several seconds. Then I connected it back to VCC (3.3V), which is where I had it when it was working before. I've also tried connecting it to VCC through a 10K resistor, similar to what the schematic of the jig board shows.

But no matter what I do, the thing just won't talk to me anymore. And note that, according to the manual, the UARTCONFIG command should have had no immediate effect anyway — it's not supposed to take effect until you do a software reset or cycle the power. Yet the device stopped talking immediately.

I don't understand how a hardware reset (holding pin 4 low) can fail to return the thing to its previous factory state. Perhaps there's a bug in the firmware? It'd have to be one nasty bug, though. Seems more likely that I'm doing something wrong, but what could that be?

Help me, RoboSavvy... you're my only hope!

Thanks,
- Joe

[i-Bot]

Hi Joe,

I will have to get together my debug board and remove my ESD200 to help you.

Forgot so much over last months !

Did you try to use the SENA software ?

[Joe]

I will have to get together my debug board and remove my ESD200 to help you.

Forgot so much over last months !

Did you try to use the SENA software ?

Thanks, i-Bot. I haven't tried the SENA software because it only runs on Windows, and I don't know if I can find/configure a Windows box to have a serial port. (I have a Keyspan USB-serial adapter on my Mac, which I know works fine because I use it all the time, but on Windows I would have to find drivers for it, and I haven't had a lot of luck at that in the past.)

Also, I don't have the carrier board (or "Jig Board" as the manual calls it) for the ESD-200. Were you using that, or did you make your own debug board? In the latter case, can you tell me how you hooked it up? (I followed diagram A.2.2.2, not using hardware flow control. I used the "idle high" TX output on the Pololu serial adapter; the ESD manual doesn't define which sort of signals it uses, but this appears to be the more common.)

Thanks,
— Joe

[i-Bot]

I used an FTDI UB232R to power the bluetooth board via a 3.3V regulator and connected the RX and TX pins direct as TTL.

I used a reset with a 10K pullup to 3.3V.

Just need to find the UB232R, I used it on the Bioloid to monitor the bus.

Will get it together and monitor the serial when the SENA software resets.

Will be tomorrow though, sorry

[Joe]

OK, that sounds like my setup (I even have a 10K pullup to 3.3V too).

Thanks again for your efforts — hopefully your monitoring will turn up something useful. While you're at it, could you also check the voltage on the TX and RX pins when they're idle? Mine are reading 3.3V, i.e., they idle high. I understand that some devices use the opposite sense, and idle low. The manual doesn't define which the ESD200 expects (though I've tried it both ways now, to no avail).

Thanks,
— Joe

[Joe]

For what it's worth, I tried running the Sena ParaniWin software. It starts with a UART Setting dialog that lets me pick the port settings. I pick COM3 (which the Keyspan software confirms is my serial adapter, and claims is working properly), 9600 baud, no parity, 1 stop bit, and click OK. The light on the serial adapter goes solid for a moment, and then Windows plays its chime, and the software goes right back to the same UART Setting dialog.

I also tried it at 115200 baud, but got the same result there.

So it seems like the ParaniWin software isn't having any more luck communicating with the device than I was having with a terminal program. The really frustrating thing is that it was working fine until I gave that UARTCONFIG command. Could I really have bricked it beyond recovery with an AT command?!?

[i-Bot]

Hi,

I extracted my ESD200 and pluged it into my board. The board only has the UB232R, a 5V to 3.3V regulator and a ush buttone to ground for the reset plus a 10K resistor to 3.3V.

My firmware is version 1.1.0. Also your line
AT+UARTCONFIG,115200,N,1
gave me an error, I had to put another 1 on the end.

I did a lot of playing around and did have some slight problems which meant I had to restart the PC to close the USB port.

Also did have a situation a bit like you describe with ParaniWIN. Pressing reset did not seem to sort it, but powering on with the reset pressed did.

I will keep an eye for when you are online, and we can use the chatroom

[Joe]

I'm pretty confident that the problem isn't on the PC side... I've done a lot of serial stuff with this Keyspan adapter, and I've never seen anything like this before. Also, the Keyspan has a status light on it; this goes to solid green when I open the port, and then blinks very quickly with each keypress I send, all as it should. It just never seems to get anything back from the ESD.

I tried holding reset at ground while powering up, but no dice.

Can you sanity-check my hardware connections for me, to make sure I'm not doing something dumb? They are:

ESD Pin 1: Ground
ESD Pin 2: +3.3V
ESD Pin 4: 10K resistor to 3.3V
ESD Pin 5: Ground
ESD Pin 7: RX pin of the Serial TTL Adapter
ESD Pin 8: TX (idle high) pin of the Serial TTL Adapter

Also, can you check that voltage level on pin 8 for me?

Thanks,
— Joe

[i-Bot]

I think the PC problem I had was when I tried to used the firmware installer. It did not close the port properly.

My pins are measured at:

Pin 1 0V
Pin 2 3.3V
Pin 3 3.3v
Pin 4 3.3V 0V on rest pressed
Pin 5 0V
Pin 6 0V
Pin 7 3.3V
Pin 8 3.3V

[Joe]

OK, good news. It turns out that the Pololu serial adapter I was using is broken. It can receive data just fine, but no longer sends data. This was confirmed both with an oscilloscope, and with a loopback test (connecting the TX and RX pins).

This means that, most likely, my ESD200 is fine — I just need to rig up another way to speak to it. I plan to do that tonight and will report back.

i-Bot, thanks for your help — as always, this community is great.

Cheers,
— Joe

[Joe]

It worked this time. I'm going to record here the steps I used for posterity, in case it helps somebody else sooner or later.

Step 1: Configure the ESD200

This requires giving it AT commands over a logic-level (3.3V) serial connection. This time I used a Pololu USB-to-Serial Adapter, both to power the ESD200 and to interface with it. My connections were as follows:

Adapter "-" to ground rail of my solderless breadboard
Adapter "3.3V" to power rail
Adapter "TX" to ESD200 "RX" (pin
Adapter "RX" to ESD200 "TX" (pin 7)
ESD200 pin 1 to ground rail
ESD200 pin 5 to ground rail
ESD200 pin 2 to power rail
ESD200 pin 4 through a 10K resistor to power rail

I had previously installed the drivers for the USB-serial adapter and verified the serial adapter by connecting its TX to RX, doing a simple loopback test. I'm using Mac OS 10.5.6 here, and Pololu's drivers worked fine.

So then I fired up a terminal program and did the following commands (with mistakes and info editing out — here's just the meat of it):

Code: Select all

AT+BTNAME="RoboBuilder BT"

OK
ATS3=1

OK
AT+UARTCONFIG,115200,N,1,1

OK
AT+BTMODE,3

OK
ATZ
...

So this changed the Bluetooth device name, set the stream priority to minimize latency, changed the baud rate to 115200, and switch it to mode 3 (i.e. normal discoverable Bluetooth behavior). The ATZ command at the end just did a software reset; I could have also power-cycled the device.

Step 2: Configure PC to connect to ESD200

Then I fired up the "Set up Bluetooth device" function on my Mac, and presto! "RoboBuilder BT" was available and connected successfully.

Step 3: Install & test device

Then the real test — I put the ESD200 back into the RoboBuilder controller (RBC), plugged that in, and turned it on. I've got our custom robobuilder-lib firmware installed at the moment, so I knew that it should respond to the "?" command over the serial port. But instead of connecting the serial cable, I pointed my terminal program at the Bluetooth device, and sure enough:

Code: Select all

Connected to RoboBuilderBT-GenericSe-1 at 115200
?
Idle mode

It works! Now I can get back to writing code to control this thing from a game controller, and working on a continuous walk cycle...

Cheers,
— Joe

[i-Bot]

Great to hear it works OK. I will put my ESD200 back into my Robobuilder.

Thanks for taking the time to document it too.

Keep us updated on your progress on the software, controller and walking. I hope to come over to Robogames in June, so I may see it in action. Doubt if I will bring my bots due to homeland security.

[PedroR]

Hi

As I understand the Bluetooth RX and TX are connected in paralel with the PC RX and TX.

I've looked at the schematics iBot has produced (here http://robosavvy.com/Builders/i-Bot/RBC.pdf ) and it seems to confirm that assumption.

My question is: for configuring the Bluetooth adapter couldn't we simply connect the RBC cable to the PC and send that sequence of AT commands over the PC cable?

Given that the BT module is in parallel with the PC RX and TX, theoretically we should be able to talk to the BT module for setup over the PC cable, without the need to use and external RS232-to-TTL converter, right?

Is there any inconvenience / incompatibility in doing this?

Thanks
Pedro.

[i-Bot]

The controller serial output sends to both the PC cable and th BT. The BT output and PC output are ORed to the controller input. So long as you don't send data from PC and BT at the same time all is OK.

The BT is slightly slower, so I tend to use cable while I am doing downloads, and BT for control. I did not make the latency change that Joe suggested, may try that.

[Joe]

The BT is slightly slower, so I tend to use cable while I am doing downloads, and BT for control. I did not make the latency change that Joe suggested, may try that.

The latency change I did optimizes it for very small packets of data — that is, control data. The default mode is optimized for throughput, which would be better for downloads. So I'm going to be in the same boat as you, using the cable for downloads and BT for control.

Pedro's suggestion is a very interesting one. Could you install a virgin ESD200, connect the standard RBC serial cable, set your terminal program to 9600 bps, and use that to configure the ESD200? The RBC would be trying to listen at 115200 bps, but as long as it doesn't do anything "harmful" with your garbled commands, it should be OK. I think the standard firmware ignores the serial port entirely, after the first second or so, so it would probably be fine.

That's a very clever idea, and somebody should try it — but not me; it took me two weeks to get this thing working, and now I don't want to touch it.