Chapter 5 - Experiment 34 Completed

I've got a handful of videos for you here, but before I show you the final results I want to share a bit about the troubleshooting I had to perform to get the PICAXE software to properly download to the chip.

The first bit of troubleshooting was mentioned in the previous post - I simply needed to test to make certain the voltage regulator was providing 5v across the circuit... it was.

Next, I plugged in the USB cable to my laptop and to the stereo connector and clicked the Program button (to upload the program)... I got an error. (Of course.) The error window that popped up suggested I check to make certain I had the Options setting for COM port configured properly - I checked and it was (COM4) but then I noticed a button on the Option window that allows you to test the chip. The first screenshot I'm including here contains a set of short troubleshooting steps. I tested the voltage between pin 2 (the Serial Input Pin) and ground and it was 0. So far, so good. The second photo here shows that 0 volts is being read and the dark green dot (on the laptop screen) is turned off.

Next, I clicked on the dark green button (it turns to a bright green) and the voltage jumped to almost 5v (see the next photo).





So that checked out, but for some reason the program still would not download to the chip. It took me about thirty seconds to figure out the very simple problem... and here it is:

Make certain to insert the USB Cable jack into the Stereo Connector until you hear it CLICK! I didn't have it pushed all the way in (although it felt that way) and the final bit of movement requires a tiny bit of extra pressure to fully seat the jack.

After that... the program downloaded just fine. The first three videos below are all variations of the first bit of code on page 301. The first video is with the code downloaded and the USB cable still connected. Second video is with the USB cable disconnected. The third video just shows the LED blinking faster after the code has been changed.

The last video shows the results of the second program from page 304.