25mm DC Motor can’t run

#1

Thank you for choosing Makeblock product and I’m very sorry for the problem you met. Please kindly confirm below details with us to eliminate some FAQ and figure out what we can do for you, thanks.

  1. Please rotate the wheels of your motor by hand, check whether it’s too tight or not.
  2. Please use IR remote controller or Bluetooth app to control the robot car, and observe the motor signal LED. If the LED light didn’t turn on, which indicates that there is no firmware. Please upload firmware with Arduino or mBlock. (Battery should be installed or the light won’t turned on) Please download firmware at https://github.com/Makeblock-official/Makeblock-Firmware/tree/master/mblock_firmware.

  1. If the LED light is on when you control the robot car, please check the battery and wiring. Please try 6 pcs new batteries or try an 11 volt lithium battery if you had one, sometimes the motor do not work is because the voltage is not enough to work.

  2. Please check the wiring of motors. Unscrew the littler screws on orange motor plug, insert the motor wires (be sure to connect to the core instead of the plastic cover), and then screw tightly.

Please contact support@makeblock.cc for any question.

#2
#3
#4

Hi, Thanks for posting these steps for motor issues but I don’t have any motor control through the bluetooth app on my phone still. I disassembled my Bluetooth starter robot tank and uploaded the most recent firmware.ino to the orion board but using the bluetooth app on my samsung galaxy S3 doesn’t light the motor control LED when using the directional control. The distance measure is working so the app does communicate with the with the board. Any ideas?

I’m using the arduino IDE and the ino sketch upload to the orion board succeeded.

#5

Are the motors completely dead?

Try connecting them directly to the battery and measure current: http://forum.makeblock.cc/t/all-about-motors-app-and-etc-from-makeblock-team/903/19?u=shaiss. This will identify whether the motors work at all.

In the makeblock libraries, there is an example https://github.com/Makeblock-official/Makeblock-Library/blob/master/makeblock/examples/Me_MotorDriver/TestDCMotorDriver/TestDCMotorDriver.ino. That goes through all the motors and verifies if they work or not.

Also, be sure your bluetooth/IR is plugged into the correct port.

#6

Thanks for the reply. I just got back to this because of Fourth of July festivities. I measured the current like you suggested and both motors worked with 6Vdc. 1 motor was drawing 180 mA and the other was 220 mA. One does feel a little stiffer to turn.

The Bluetooth was plugged into 5 and it was working with ultrasonic sensor. It was returning a changing distance to the phone app. But for the motor/driving control on the phone app it does nothing. No LED indicator at the output of the orion board whether the motors were hooked up or not.

I tried the TestDCMotorDriver.ino but it doesn’t compile. This is the error I get.

Arduino: 1.0.6 (Windows NT (unknown)), Board: "Arduino Uno"
sketch_jul05a:18: error: ‘MeDCMotor’ does not name a type
sketch_jul05a:19: error: ‘MeDCMotor’ does not name a type
sketch_jul05a:20: error: ‘MeDCMotor’ does not name a type
sketch_jul05a:21: error: ‘MeDCMotor’ does not name a type
sketch_jul05a.ino: In function ‘void loop()’:
sketch_jul05a:32: error: ‘motor1’ was not declared in this scope
sketch_jul05a:33: error: ‘motor2’ was not declared in this scope
sketch_jul05a:34: error: ‘motor3’ was not declared in this scope
sketch_jul05a:35: error: ‘motor4’ was not declared in this scope

I’m not real good with the programming yet, but I deleted and reinstalled the makeblock library to be sure it was right and the header files look OK. MeDCMotor is defined in Makeblock.h.

If I get to it I’ll try an IR control.

Thanks, and if you have something else to try thanks in advance.

#7