Failed to connect

[Jack Swayze]

All, I am having a problem getting the irobot to show up on my mac. Every time I run connect, I get failed to connect. I would try and troubleshoot this myself by cant find it in the forums, and there doesn't seem to be any troubleshooting docs.

Can someone point me in the right direction.

thanks

[Jack Swayze]

Ok...

Well I am still confused why with a keyspan adapter its still not working. Can you tell me what TTY ports your machine is using to talk to the irobot? I feel this is still the issue. When I watch the keyspan port, i am not seeing any communications, so the software is not talking to the right port. I am not receiving any errors, so it must be sending those commands somewhere.

I have a make controller sitting around, so I may go with the true sparky design if I cant get this to work. I have an eeepc, i can install ubuntu on and use the irobot with that.

Any help getting the sparky jr working is greatly appreciated, as I feel its the perfect device for my application.

[Jack Swayze]

Is there a forum he does check?

Marque Cornblatt said:

I contacted the software dev. when you first asked, but he's in grad school at Stanford so he can't respond to your questions as quickly as I can.

[Johnny Celenz]

Hello Jack,

I sincerely apologize that it has take me sometime to get on this. School can be so time consuming!

I think I understand the situation:
You are using a serial-to-USB device that is not the Keyspan model.

This should be okay, here is how to proceed:
1) Download a fresh version of the Sparky Server software, I found a significant bug.
http://sparkyrobotcontroller.googlecode.com/files/Sparky%20Server.pkg
2) We need to make a link in /dev from your serial device to /dev/cu.KeySerial1 (that is the device the Sparky program /Sparky/controld uses to send commands from Skype to the iRobot).

open Terminal
cd /dev
sudo ln -s /dev/YOURSERIALDEVICE /dev/cu.KeySerial1

To find your serial device, I would:
turn on iRobot, but unplug serial cable
open Terminal
cd /dev
ls -ltr
now plug in the serial cable
ls -ltr
at the bottom of the directory listing, hopefully a new file or files has appeared. For the KeySpan there were two devices, but the cu.KeySerial1 one actually works.

Testing:
After you make the link...
Turn on the iRobot and connect it
cd /Sparky
sudo killall controld
sudo ./shell_check_sparky_irobot.php
ps ax | grep controld
after the last command, you should see an instance of controld running
pick up Sparky (off the floor), he/she should start to beep (since the robot is scared)
if you hear no beeps, then try changing the link and trying these testing steps again.

Note, you can also edit /Sparky/shell_check_sparky_irobot.php and change the device passed to controld.

Hope this helps! If not, we might have to figure out how to talk by email or voice :-)
-John

[Jack Swayze]

This is exactly what I was looking for!!!!!!!

I will give this as try tonight and let you know. I had a feeling this was the issue...

Thanks again for taking the time to look into this.
Ill let you know how it goes.


Jack

Johnny Celenz said:

Hello Jack,

I sincerely apologize that it has take me sometime to get on this. School can be so time consuming!

I think I understand the situation:
You are using a serial-to-USB device that is not the Keyspan model.

This should be okay, here is how to proceed:
1) Download a fresh version of the Sparky Server software, I found a significant bug.
http://sparkyrobotcontroller.googlecode.com/files/Sparky%20Server.pkg
2) We need to make a link in /dev from your serial device to /dev/cu.KeySerial1 (that is the device the Sparky program /Sparky/controld uses to send commands from Skype to the iRobot).

open Terminal
cd /dev
sudo ln -s /dev/YOURSERIALDEVICE /dev/cu.KeySerial1

To find your serial device, I would:
turn on iRobot, but unplug serial cable
open Terminal
cd /dev
ls -ltr
now plug in the serial cable
ls -ltr
at the bottom of the directory listing, hopefully a new file or files has appeared. For the KeySpan there were two devices, but the cu.KeySerial1 one actually works.

Testing:
After you make the link...
Turn on the iRobot and connect it
cd /Sparky
sudo killall controld
sudo ./shell_check_sparky_irobot.php
ps ax | grep controld
after the last command, you should see an instance of controld running
pick up Sparky (off the floor), he/she should start to beep (since the robot is scared)
if you hear no beeps, then try changing the link and trying these testing steps again.

Note, you can also edit /Sparky/shell_check_sparky_irobot.php and change the device passed to controld.

Hope this helps! If not, we might have to figure out how to talk by email or voice :-)
-John

[Jack Swayze]

I just had a look at the bit of code, and I see where the bug was. LOL...

Looks like you forgot to put the /dev/cu/KeySerial1 in the PHP control file. i did not even think to look at the root of my drive for any Sparky folders. :) Or I might have found that. O'Well.

Now that I fully understand how the command are getting to the serial port, i might create a new PHJP file for you for the several different USB-Serial adapters that are out there. That way no one else falls victim to this tinny bug. I have (i think) every adapter for the mac at my house, so i will find their ports and change the php file. i will upload them here.

Thanks again for your response, I know you are busy with school ( I will be starting soon myself plus working a 50 hour a week job).

Feel free to email me if you like, I have some really cool ideas for this project that you may or may not be interested in. talk2dug at g mail . com

THX again.

jack

[Jack Swayze]

WOOOHOOO!!!

I was able to get the robot to finally move!!!! It turns out there are wholes in the documentation not just bugs in the code.

The first major problem (if I missed it in the directions let me know) the controld app is not being auto launched and must be launched to talk to the keyspan adapter.

The second issue is if you use a different usb adapter. This can be easily fixed post here if you are going to use a different adapter, ill show you how to set it up.

Now that its working its time to start hacking things. i am going to create a new post regarding adding new movements and reading the sensors.

[Marque Cornblatt]

Hey, that sounds great. You are the first official Sparky not made by us. (Congrats!) Let's see some pics or video!!

And thanks for the notes. Many people want to see Sparky's edge sensors working like the bumpers do, Also folks want auto-recharging. Trying to drive back onto the base is very hard via the web, but the Create has that task built-in. It's just a matter of accessing it and creating a button to engage it.

Woot!

[Johnny Celenz]

Hello.

controld should have been added to the crontab for root. If you sudo crontab -l, you will see the entry.

Oh no, I see the bug! I will fix the distribution now. The wrong entry is:
* * * * * php /Sparky/shell_check_sparky_irobot.php &> /tmp/shell_check_sparky_irobot.php.log

it should be:
* * * * * /Sparky/shell_check_sparky_irobot.php &> /tmp/shell_check_sparky_irobot.php.log

The file shell_check_sparky_irobot.php used to be PHP, but now it is simply a bash script.

Duh! Sorry about the bugs, creating and testing the distribution has been tricky.

-John

Jack Swayze said:

WOOOHOOO!!!

I was able to get the robot to finally move!!!! It turns out there are wholes in the documentation not just bugs in the code.

The first major problem (if I missed it in the directions let me know) the controld app is not being auto launched and must be launched to talk to the keyspan adapter.

The second issue is if you use a different usb adapter. This can be easily fixed post here if you are going to use a different adapter, ill show you how to set it up.

Now that its working its time to start hacking things. i am going to create a new post regarding adding new movements and reading the sensors.