Can I replace my mBot board with the Uno shield?

#1

In order to give my mBot a few extra ports, I’m wondering if I could replace my mBot board with an Uno shield-enhanced Uno? I put them together today and uploaded the shield firmware to the pair and all seems to work. I do need to do some testing and make sure the ports actually communicate with ME boards, of course, but I’ll try that later this morning.

So:
#1, can I replace the board without trouble?
#2, since the shield doesn’t have the motor connections like the mBot board, would I use an RJ25 Port (ME Port) to attach the mBot motors or is there another way?
#2a - if I do that, since I have a pan/tilt servo kit on the mBot now, would I be able to run two ME Port boards off the shield?
#3 - what header files need to be in the sketch? – found this by running mBlock and selecting the shield as the board: MeShield.h.
#4 - how I do I power the pair? Through the Uno or through the shield?

I’m fairly new to all this, so any help is appreciated!

#3

In my opinion this is basically feasible - I have also planned but not yet implemented due to lack of time.

In Sketch adjustments are needed because use other ports. This is some work - real problems I would not expect.

#4

Hi BigAl,

It is not suggested to replace the mCore board on mBot to other board since the connection interface of the motors for mBot are different with the interfaces on other board. What’s more, these motors cannot be connected to RJ25 ports through the RJ25 adatper.

When you use the Arduino uno with the me Uno shield, you can power the Uno shield directly.

#5

Ok, I got the shield working with my uno, so that was easy. I don’t have it on the mBot because I still have a few questions.
If I want to increase the number of ports available on the mBot and use either an Orion or the shield, which motors could I use? The shield and the Orion both have four ports for driving motors, so what motors can i use? And which, if any, motor driver cards will be needed?
The other option is to use my Megapi, for which I already have purchased four dc encoder motor cards. I wanted to use this for a Dagu Rover 5 chassis I have, but there are some other issues with that right now. I’d rather stick with the shield option.
If you could give me an idea of which motors and cards to get my shield working, I’d really appreciate it!

#6

Hi BigAl,

We sell the mBot in the form of kit. Every specs has been tested. I am afraid I cannot provide any suggestion without any test since this is equal to develop another project.

What I want to mention is that the bluetooth module/ 2.4G module will be useless once you changed the main board for mBot. You may even need change the wheels for mBot since the hole size it only match to the corruent motor. If you are going to change all of these components for mBot, I think it is totally another robot instead of mBot. Anyway, maybe you can also give a try and figure it out yourself.

#7

Yes, I have found all that to be true! I’ve left it alone for now and moved on to using my starter robot.

Thanks for the replies! Maybe I’ll get back to that someday…

#8

OK, I have overlooked this. I will try to solve this with “Me Dual Motor Driver V1” and two motors DC 25 6V / 185RPM.

http://www.makeblock.com/me-dual-dc-motor-driver

http://www.makeblock.com/dc-motor-25-6v-185rpm

Gerhard

#9