Robonova-1 not working or communicating-troubleshoot?

[dstrass]

Hey,
My Robonova-1 has been working for over a year with the same program.. until yesterday.
When I turn him on, he does not stand up to starting position yet his blue led light flashes every second as long as power is on. (battery is fine)
There is no power to any of the servos.
I am "on the road" so I made up a serial cable to see if I can upload my program and RoboBasic is not seeing the controller.
I'm pretty sure my controller has died, for some reason.
1. Anyone know any simple diagnostics to try and find the issues?
2. How can I get a new controller? (I think it's a C-3024: my RN is 2 years old purchased early 2006)
3. How can I get a new controller and serial cable shipped to Australia? Any distributors nearby?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
All my best,
Dave

[Sazabi]

try to reflash it with I-Bot's flasher. Only one idea comes to my mind is to use serial port monitor to trace if there any answers from the board.
Good Luck!

[dstrass]

Thanks for your help.
Can't seem to find I-bot on the web... can you direct me to the link for an "I-bot" flasher?
Thanks!
Dave

[i-Bot]

Are all your pins on the board straight and not shorting, especially the ones at the top left, Nothing should be connected there.

If you connect to the controller at 9600 on a terminal program. Do you see a ">" when you power on the board ?

Is your cable OK ? If you short the tip and the middle ring, do you get back what you type in the terminal prog ?

[dstrass]

Thanks for your reply..
My answers with ***

Are all your pins on the board straight and not shorting, especially the ones at the top left, Nothing should be connected there. ***Nothing is connected, those pins are covered with the plastic sheath.. they are straight and not shorting.

If you connect to the controller at 9600 on a terminal program. Do you see a ">" when you power on the board ? ***YES I see a ">" when I power up the board and then.. "> > > " keep coming.

Is your cable OK ? If you short the tip and the middle ring, do you get back what you type in the terminal prog?
*** I haven't used my terminal prog in so long, I've forgotten how to type in characters...
Does the above help in diagnostics?
Thanks so much for your time.
Dave

[Sazabi]

look for flasher here: http://robosavvy.com/Builders/i-Bot/ . File - rflash2512.zip OR roboflash.zip . don't remember wich is the lates. BTW - there also defauls flash in I-Bot's docs.

[dstrass]

Thanks...
I'll give it a try.
Offline for a day... I'll be back with my results.
Really appreciate everything.
Dave

[i-Bot]

You should get a single ">" on power up as a prompt from the bootloader. There should only be one. If you get multiple ">" then you must be reseting again. Are you sure your battery is OK and really charged.

Don't reflash if you might have power problems.

[Voelker]

I had the same problem with getting constant > on prompt and head led flashing, and i had to change the board. The atmega just kept resetting.
The other thing you can do is to remove the atmega 128 from the board and solder a new one, it is not that easy, but when you know a board cost 149€, and a new chip cost 8€ ...