Problem loading multiple Arduino uno boards

I've been searching and have not found a way to do this so yet so any help would be great.

My goal is to have 16 stepper motors all connected to Arduino boards and I need to have these connected with reset pins to zero the motors. The problem I'm having right now is that I am not able to connect more than one Arduino uno board to simultaneously control the stepper and receive sensor data from reset pin.

Is there a way to load more than one arduino board which would mean loading multiple com ports? This may be simple but my firefly definition is only using the port that my Arduino sketch loader has selected and I can't select more than one.

Thanks much

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on March 28, 2014 at 1:18pm

Hi Nathan,

When you connect to Arduino boards to your computer (via a USB cable) you should see two COM ports show up. This will show up in the Arduino IDE as well as the Grasshopper COM ports available. If you use two Open/Close COM ports, you should be able to open the port to both of these boards. Then, you can talk to each one using whichever methods you want (likely using the QuadStepper Stream to one, and the Uno Read for the other). Does that help?

Permalink Reply by Nathan Barnes on April 3, 2014 at 7:36am

Hi, Thanks Andy! Yup that is it.

I don't have all 16 motors in yet but it seems to well with multiple

boards now. I will post some pics when we get a little more developed.

Thank you for your help! I'm really enjoying firefly. It surprises me all the time

with what it can do. Great work!

Permalink Reply by Nathan Barnes on April 25, 2014 at 10:59pm

So I thought all of my problems were solved with what you said but I did not check thoroughly enough and now having some issues again.

I have scaled down slightly and now trying to run 3 arduino boards and 3 quad stepper driver boards (one for each arduino). These are each running one motor (for right now). But when I try to activate two or more of the arduino boards and run more than one motor it my definition crashes at the quad stepper component. specifically when I am trying to use the second open port command. I'm using the standard quadstepper sketch from Arduino IDE.

I am at a loss right now. I've attached the definition and can upload pics of setup if helpful. I really appreciate any thoughts on how to correct my setup.

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