Seeeduino Stalker Tutorial?

Hi all,

This is my first post - I’m a mechanical engineer trying to get the hang of electronics for the first time so please don’t be too harsh!

First a bit of pre-amble - does this forum like pre-amble? I can’t guess but here goes: I’m living in the United Republic of Tanzania trying to make an improved biodigester. Biodigesters are basically these devices that allow bacteria to convert cow manure into a flammable gas (biogas!). This means that subsistence farmers can get easy access to free cooking fuel instead of trekking for hours a day to find firewood, or spend 20% of their income on charcoal - amongst many other benefits. (See here for more info: aidg.org/biodigesters.htm) So far biodigesters have always been pretty badly designed because they don’t take into account the user’s needs. I suspect that the current design is massively over-engineered. I want to hook up a load of pressure sensors to a few biodigesters installed in family homes to record their gas usage habits over a number of weeks. The results of this should help to reduce the cost of biodigesters by about 50% allowing more farmers to be able to afford one. Problem is the project budget is pretty low at this stage and I can’t afford all the super-expensive data loggers I’d ideally like to have. So I read that the Seeeduino Stalker can be used as an autonomous data logger and I bought one (with an ATmega 168 processor) along with a Uart_SB to find out.

Enough pre-amble.

I decided I’ve probably jumped in at the deep end and I could do with starting from the beginning, so I’ve bought an Arduino starter pack. I’ve always wanted to get in the whole electronics scene anyway. Unfortunately it usually takes a couple of months post stuff out here, and I was hoping someone might be able to help me get started in a basic way with the Stalker.

I’ve downloaded this tutorial file for the Seeeduino, called “Hello Seeeduino”. It’s great, I got the drivers and the software installed and the pretty lights come on and everything. Unfortunately I can’t seem to upload the blink sketch. The symptoms of the problem after pressing “upload” are as follows:

  • Arduino software indicates “Uploading to I/O board”
  • A few red lights blink on the board here and there (I can be more specific if it would help with diagnosis)
  • A few seconds pass and the Arduino software prints the “binary sketch size” to be 896 bytes
  • A few more seconds pass (and a few more lights blink on the board) and the software prints a load of text. I’ve pasted the text in at the bottom of this post

And that’s it.

A few notes on my attempts to repair (with help from the Arduino troubleshooting files)

  • I am using Windows Vista SP2 (sorry)
  • I am using Arduino Alpha 0018
  • I have selected the correct COM port (number 24 as per the settings in my control panel)
  • Under tools>board in the Arduino software there is no option for Seeeduino Stalker, so I tried all the ones that say ATmega168 on them to no avail.
  • I disable my firewall
  • I pressed all the buttons a flipped all the switches in several different combinations on the Uart_SB and the Stalker before trying to upload again (Jeez what a noob!)
  • I have not been able to follow any instructions related to PINs and other hardware diagnosis checks. Let’s just say I got it out of the box and tried not to touch too many things, so you probably have a better idea than me about its current state.

There’s every chance this is happening because I’m following a Seeeduino tutorial, not a Seeeduino Stalker specific one, and so I’ve missed a couple of details in setting up (e.g. how should the switches on the Uart_SB be set?). If anyone does know whether a Stalker tutorial exists I would be very grateful to be pointed in its general direction.

Thank you very much in advance for any help that you can offer.

Best regards,

Ed

[size=85]This is the text that printed after I clicked on upload (I pressed shift to get the verbose output):[/size]

[size=85]Binary sketch size: 896 bytes (of a 14336 byte maximum)
C:\Users\Eddie\Desktop\arduino-0018\hardware/tools/avr/bin/avrdude -CC:\Users\Eddie\Desktop\arduino-0018\hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf -v -v -v -v -patmega168 -cstk500v1 -P\.\COM24 -b19200 -D -Uflash:w:C:\Users\Eddie\AppData\Local\Temp\build7734768847572971400.tmp\Blink.cpp.hex:i

avrdude: Version 5.4-arduino, compiled on Oct 11 2007 at 19:12:32
Copyright © 2000-2005 Brian Dean, bdmicro.com/

     System wide configuration file is "C:\Users\Eddie\Desktop\arduino-0018\hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"

     Using Port            : \\.\COM24
     Using Programmer      : stk500v1
     Overriding Baud Rate  : 19200

avrdude: ser_open(): setting dtr
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: Recv:
avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00
avrdude: Send: Q [51] [20]
avrdude: Recv:
avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51

avrdude done. Thank you.
[/size]

Hi Ed,

To upload a basic blink sketch, please try to do as follows:

  1. connect UartSB to stalker;
  2. move switches on UartSB to xbee and 5v side; move switch on stalker to on(top) side.
  3. connect UartSB to PC.
  4. Open Arduino 0018 and open the Digital->Blink sketch;
  5. Choose the Board of “Arduino Diecimila, Duemilanove, or Nano w/ATmega168”;
  6. Choose the COM port the Arduino recognized.
  7. click the upload toolbar.

May this helpful to you, and feel free to ask any question.

Regards,

-Icing

Magic.

Looking forward to a bit of tinkering. Sooner or later I’ll find out what all that I just did means. For now I think I’ll just enjoy watching the blinking light for a bit.

Thanks!

Hi Ed,

Strangely enough, I’m also a Mechanical Engineer working on biodigesters, and have just started learning electronics with the Stalker.

Have you had any luck with data logging so far? I’m going to be logging temperatures, maybe pH and flow rate (through the heat exchanger). I’m struggling so far; I’m trying to use the stalker as a shield on a Seeeduino Mega. If you have any insightful information about getting these things up and running I’d be greatful to hear it. Maybe we could chat about biodigesters too?

Cheers,

Iain

Isn´t it wonderful these boards exist. I am impressed you guys having real world problems and are trying to solve them. Some people have no more than turning on a LED.

Hi, stalkers

A newbie question: how do you connect your Stalker to USB? I’ve wired a FTDI/USB of Sparkfun to the stalkers FTDI bus (tx->rx, rx->tx: is it ok?), but when loading a sketch, one LED is on, an other is blinking, Sparkfun’s txLED blinking, arduino console says “uploading”, but nothing else happens!
Where could be the problem? Should I choose another board from arduino’s menu? Which one? Or the Sparkfun in not compatible? Using Arduino21.

Thanks a lot
Andrais

Hi,

I am having similar issues.

I am trying to upload the sample datalogger program for the Seeeduino Stalker 1.0 using Arduino software v. 0022. I have it set to ATIMega 168 Diecimilia et al., and am connecting via USB and UartsBee 3.1 serial to FTDI. All attempts have failed. Anyone know what I am doing wrong here?

Thanks,
Dr. Guy

So I found the answer to my problem at http://www.seeedstudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1426&hilit=stalker+program

What you need to do is keep the XBee module out of the Stalker. After that it will communicate just fine with the board.

To loading sketch, not only TX and RX, but DTR need to connect too. (as far i know, it is connected to reset pin)
When loading sketch, arduino need the atmega to reset in the prefect time.
It just like handshake before we exchange our name card :smiley:

I hope that helped, and correct me if I’m wrong.