Robonewbie

[robbmcmahan]

Hi. I'm hoping someone could help me. I just purchased a Robobuilder from ebay and it came with a bluetooth module installed. From my understanding I'm suppose to be able to send commands through bluetooth instead of having to use a com port which is what I need to do because I'm running Windows XP on a mac using parallels. I found on the internet the installation procedures but nowhere can I find how to actually connect to the bluetooth module? Can someone please walk me through how this works? Thanks

[limor]

I recommend that you first try the wired option. XP in Parallels COM port works perfectly fine.

The bluetooth module should appear on your PC when you search for devices and you then connect to it and you get new COM ports through which you communicate with the robot as if you had attached the wire. hence start with the wire to familiarize yourself with the applications to isolate potential issues.

[robbmcmahan]

Thanks limor. The issue is that I don't have a serial port or a USB adapter so I need to run the bluetooth. Is there a way to use the bluetooth from my mac with parallels without using the serial port?

[limor]

if it doesn't work then you need a usb2serial adapter. they are dirt cheap (see on robosavvy or ebay)

did you try what i suggested?
"The bluetooth module should appear on your PC when you search for devices and you then connect to it.." means you enable bluetooth on your virtual machine and then in parallels/xp you look for the robot's device broadcast address among the list of bluetooth devices that are in your vicinity. you can verify that the robot's device is broadcasting by looking for it in your Mac first.

[robbmcmahan]

Ok, what i've done now is to install Windows 7 with bootcamp. I turn on the robot and then search for devices but it's not finding the robots bluetooth signal!? Is there something else I have to do to the robot to make it start broadcasting the bluetooth?

Thanks