Following are suggested assembly and testing instructions for the microcontroller board

Assembling robot controller board Rev 0

Note: if you are putting together a new rev 0 board, perform mod A to to the board (documented elsewhere) so that it will be functionally the same as the rev 1 board.

1. Install all modular jacks.

First press their plastic tabs into the holes on the PC board. This takes quite a bit of force. Make sure the pins are in their holes first to make sure you don’t bend them when the module pops into place.
Make sure all the module jacks are aligned neatly.
Solder all the pins.

2. Make a cut to the wire path as shown in picture below

3. Install 8 jumpers as shown below

Note: These 8 jumpers are the standard configuration. 5 of the jumpers are required and the 3 in the upper left corner area are optional and enable module ports RC4,5 & 6 as RC servo drivers by applying 6 vdc to their power output. RC0 – 3 are wired to the 8 vdc bus for use as sonars. You can have any number of sonars or RC drivers, but you should have RC drivers starting at RC6 and working down, and Sonars starting at RC0 and working up.

4. Install the battery monitor zener diode and resistor as shown below.  

Note that this is a change from the silkscreen drawings. The wire trace must be cut below where the zener diode is installed  (step 2 above).  The resistor is mounted to any one of the ground pads to the right.

    Click on picture to enlarge

5. Install the two 50 pin headers for the Adapt9S12DP256 processor.

These must be aligned accurately. I suggest you solder each header in place at one pin on each end. Then insert the processor to ensure that the pins line up. If not, heat the soldered pins so the connectors can line up properly. Then solder the rest of the pins and remove the processor.

Alternately, just insert the processor into the two headers and insert the whole thing into the PCB and solder it that way. Make sure you are grounded to avoid damaging the processor. I’d recommend removing the processor when done to avoid damage during later work.

6. Install the 20 and 24 pins dip sockets for the rate gyro and the USB adapter.

7. Install the 5 and/or 10 pin headers for the accelerometer. Depending on which you buy.

This is a good one to be sure it is mounted accurately also since it holds the accelerometer in position.

8. Install resistor for optional external power LED. The value of this resistor depends on the LED indicator you select. See Parts list rev 1 for suggestion

9. Install 9 2.7K resistors and 0.012 uf capacitors for analog inputs. 8 are located behind the modular jacks for IR0 thru IR7. The remaining resistor and capacitor are near pin 1 of the gyro socket.

10. Install the three 47K resistors for the motor brake pullups. These are located just behind MOT0, 1, 2.

11. Install the 78L05 voltage regulator and nearby 0.1 & 0.33 uf. capacitors. These are near pin 20 of the gyro socket.

12. Install the Program / Run switch.

13. Install the 2 and 4 pins headers for the external reset button and SPI interface. These are located just behind Spare 0 modular jack.  Install the 2 pin header for the external LED in the lower right corner.  

14. Install the power input terminal block.

15. Install the power blocking diode right behind the power input terminal block .

16. (deleted)

17. Install the small 10K 1/4 watt resistor just below the 7806 regulator.

18. Install the two 0.1 uf capacitors near the two power regulators and a 0.33 uf cap where the two larger caps are indicated on the board drawings..

19. Install the heat sinks on the two power regulator chips (7808 and 7806). Use heat sink grease between the regulator chip and the heat sink.

20. Then solder the two regulators into place making sure the heatsinks are a couple millimeters above the surface of the board. This is necessary since the heat sinks can short to some wires if they get pressed down to the board. It would be a good idea to put a piece of tape (or something) below the heat sinks to ensure they can not be pressed down to the board causing a short.

21. The rev 0 board does not have pull-up resistors for the IIC bus. These are required if you want to use IIC. On the back of the board, attach two 2.2K 1/4 watt resistors to pin 50 of H2 on the processor board. You will find that there is a trace from this pin to a nearby unused pad on the board. Attach the other ends of the two resistors to the pads immediately beside pins 38 and 39 of H2

.22. Attach the processor board power connector (supplied with the processor to the controller board. With the processor installed (or at least roughly in position), attach the connector to the processor and measure how long the two wires should be to reach to the two holes in the controller board between the I2C connector and DIO 1. Cut them to length. Leave enough slack so that the connector can be easily removed from the processor board. Solder them into the controller board with the black wire connected to the hole which is connected to the wide ground bus which travels around the edge of the board; and the red wire to the hole just below that (closer to the center of the controller board.)

Inspect all soldering to ensure no cold solder joints, The solder should look well bonded to both the pad and the pin. If in doubt, just reheat the joint &/or add a little more solder if needed.

Make sure that there are no shorts between adjacent solder paths.

If the flux residue on the board looks excessive (a little won’t hurt), you can generally remove it by brushing with alcohol.

Installation of accelerometer.

First, the T2 resistor on the accelerometer board must be replaced with the 1.5M resistor on the parts list. If the analog.com board is used, it may come with a 5 pin header attached or with empty pins. If empty, install a 5 pin header with the pins pointed DOWN when the board is level with the accelerometer chip on top. If it came with a header, the pins may be pointed up and must be unsoldered and reinstalled pointing down. Note: while it is possible to install the accelerometer with the pins pointed thewrong way and the board mounted upside down, the accelerometer will then be reading accelerations backwards which will not work.

Installation of USB adapter:

The USB adapter card has a conflict with Windows XP. If you just hook up to an XP computer, it will install the wrong set of drivers. (see ftdichip.com website for more details)
FTDI has a resolution for this problem. Download their driver set DRP101504 and unzip it.
Hook up a USB cable between the PC/laptop and the USB adapter. (note: the adapter must be plugged into the circuit board to power up properly. Otherwise, see dlpdesign.com datasheet for info on which pins must be connected to get the adapter to work.
PC will recognize the USB adapter and automatically install the (wrong) driver. If you go to device manager, you will see the adapter under Ports as "USB Serial Port"
Run FTXPRCVR as supplied in the DRP101504 folder. This changes the identification of the adapter so that windows will not install the default driver.

Disconnect and reconnect the USB cable. XP should say new hardware found. When asked, install driver from DRP101504 folder.

Installation of rate gyro.

Install in socket oriented as shown in drawing below.

Completed board.  Click to enlarge.

Testing:

With Processor, USB Chip, gyro chip and accelerometer removed from the board, apply 12 volt power to the terminal block. (Being SURE that you don’t have the wiring reversed)

Verify that you have 8 volts on the red wire of the processor power connector and zero volts on the black.

Verify 6 volts on the three jumpers going to RC4,5,6.

Verify 5 volts on pin 1 of the rate gyro.

Remove power, install the processor, USB chip, rate gyro and accelerometer.

Apply power again. The green light on the processor should light up.

Testing will continue after installing the microcontroller software.