Hello Community,
This past week, I've been working hard on building my ArduMower.
I completed my soldering of the PCB based on a google-translate of the ArduMower PDF.
The following are some notes/issues that I came across. I wonder if any of you have come across these before, and if I misunderstood anything particular.
Sorting:
Pin Headers
Capacitors
RTC:
BarGraph:
Arduino Pin Headers:
Translated to "only one PIN per bar is soldered again"....which I misunderstood as meaning that only 1 row of the short-side of the DUE pins were required to be soldered.
Motor Driver Protection Circuits
Input Diodes
Setting the DC/DC Converter
Connect Motors and Charging Circuit:
Program the Arduino and Bluetooth:
Other notes:
I am working on helping make the english PDF instructions clear, and I hope that some of my notes of my PCB 1.3 experience are useful to someone.
I'm also working on figure out how to many my mower work in my yard (I'm having issues with configuring the peripherals (Perimeter, GPS "Stuck", IMU, etc)...this will be a separate post.
Thanks for all your work. Having fun, continuing to work on it.
This past week, I've been working hard on building my ArduMower.
I completed my soldering of the PCB based on a google-translate of the ArduMower PDF.
The following are some notes/issues that I came across. I wonder if any of you have come across these before, and if I misunderstood anything particular.
Sorting:
- I do not know what the 6-pin bent Female is for (apparently for mounting the BT module on the back side?)
- I did not receive MP3-Y2, CKX-X2 were supplied in their place
Pin Headers
- I really liked the instructions about how to solder them straight (by using a jumper).
- I think that it's worthwhile to mention that the JP13 label is found on the back of the board, but the pins can be soldered on the front. I think it was done this way because originally there was not space for a jumper under the Arduino Due. But now that we are using double-tall headers for the Due, there's space under it for the jumper.
Capacitors
- This is the step that I had the most difficulty with. I proceeded with the soldering without leaving enough space to bend the capacitors down. It wasn't until many steps later, when I tried to install the DC/DC or other components ABOVE the capacitors, did I learn my mistake.
- I think that it's worthwhile to say that the C2, C3 and C12 should be positioned horizontally in order to have room. for the DUE, INA169, and LM2596 respectively.
RTC:
- The MAIN board has 2 possible positions for soldering the pins for these connectors. I found that the outside pair of pins were the best alignment with the TinyRTC Module.
BarGraph:
- I didn't know that there's a "right-side up" for the bar graph module.
- The bar-graph must be installed in a specific orientation. If you install it backwards, it will not work (no damage, but also no lights). The correct orientation has the printed words on the side of the bargraph facing to the inside of the PCB.
Arduino Pin Headers:
- I made a mistake here, and only soldered 1 set of headers along the short-side of the DUE. I did this because the google-translate of the german instructions
Translated to "only one PIN per bar is soldered again"....which I misunderstood as meaning that only 1 row of the short-side of the DUE pins were required to be soldered.
Motor Driver Protection Circuits
- NOTE: If MP3-Y2 are not supplied, CKX-X2 are supplied in their place
- I had a lot of physical difficulty fitting everything through and soldering all the diodes. I eventually got it done, but this was really hard. I wonder if soldering some of the diodes along the back would have been easier?
- P49 Emergency Stop: NOTE: You may want to delay soldering this plug until you have soldered the BY500 Diodes, because one of the BY500 diodes has pins very-near the connector location, and it may be easier to solder the connector AFTER the BY500 diodes.
Input Diodes
- Please make sure that the heat sinks do not touch each other. You SHOULD put some heat shrink tubing, or other non-conductive material between the heat sinks as protection against accidental contact.
Setting the DC/DC Converter
- I had to remove the DUE again later, because this step indicates that I can install the DUE...but doesn't say:
- NOTE: If you are using the Arduino Due clone from the marotronics shop, you should set the jumper JP13 beneath the Arduino Due BEFORE you install the Arduino Due (otherwise you'll block it, and have to remove the Arduino again).
Connect Motors and Charging Circuit:
- When connecting P49, I think that it's useful to mention that the Emergency Stop button's "Orange Side" is the Normally-Closed side which should have the wires connected
- I think that having recommended wire lengths for the various connectors would be very useful. I have found that 20cm for the Wheel Motor cables is good.
Program the Arduino and Bluetooth:
- I think that it would be useful here to mention the major options for software (Azurit, others?), and link to their instruction pages. I had to discover the Azurit instructions...it would be great to be guided from PCB to programming.
Other notes:
- When talking about JP8, and setting it to "disable automatic shut off"....but no where does it mention that there's no other way to turn off the ArduMower other than the 8-minute wait timeout....which we have now disabled by setting the JP8 jumper. I had to discover myself that I had to move the jumper to the "automatic" side, in order to have the ArduMower power-off automatically.
- No where does the guide mention how VERY important it is to have the bluetooth module working in order to verify and configure the robot. I think that this point should be highlighted somewhere.
I am working on helping make the english PDF instructions clear, and I hope that some of my notes of my PCB 1.3 experience are useful to someone.
I'm also working on figure out how to many my mower work in my yard (I'm having issues with configuring the peripherals (Perimeter, GPS "Stuck", IMU, etc)...this will be a separate post.
Thanks for all your work. Having fun, continuing to work on it.