Senior Project

I’ve gotten lots of emails about this project. Sadly, I don’t have the time to answer each one as they come in, and I’ve already forgotten some of the info I figured out for this project. Before I forget it alli decided to write this FAQ to help out anyone who is having problems.

First, make sure you have read every post and page on this website. If you haven’t, then get to it. Most of the very important information is in the “pages” of this site that does not show up on the blog. This sitemap shows all the pages. The “Quick Reference” page has links to other sites using the HM2007. Please read all of those sites as well. I have updated this page to reflect even more information.

Que: “Where Do I get the HM2007?” (or other parts)

Soln. All parts can be acquired from Images Co.

Que: “My HM2007 project doesn’t work”or “I am getting no reaction…”

Soln. Make sure you have not just blindly built what is in the schematic. Triple check your pins on the datasheets for your chips and make changes if you need to. In my case, The RAM chip I used had a non-inverted enable on pin26, but the schematic assumed the enable was inverted. This caused the circuit not to work until I figured it out.

Also, feel free to move the address lines around. These lines are mixed up on the schematic only to facilitate the PCB designed from Images co. Aligning SA0-A0 from the HM2007 to RAM and D0-D0 in the same fashion caused no problems for me. It works great and is easier to build on a breadboard.

Que: “I am using CPU mode …”

Soln. I am sorry that I cannot help in these cases at all as I did not choose to use this mode on the chip. However, there is some information in the Images Co datasheet Addendum and some more info on the talking toaster page as well as some info for interfacing the Arduino. (<– that last link is the HM2007 wiki, great resource.)

In General:

This project is very reliable. If you build the HM2007 correctly, it will work exactly as described. If it does not, then do the following:

1.) Double check the schematic connections

2.) Double check wiring connections

3.) If possible, test your chips to confirm they work.

4.) Redo the schematic from scratch (not as hard as you might think!!!) Use address lines SA0-A0 and data lines D0-D0 like in this schematic. Draw your own schematic. You may need to enlist the help of a professor or teacher to help you with this.

5.) If nothing you do is fixing your project, it is very likely that your RAM chip or HM2007 is bad. This is not the most likely problem, however, I did encounter a bad HM2007 chip and a bad RAM chip. The best bet here is to order new chips. I made several orders from Images Co and was charges overall about $60 for shipping on everything.

With that said, this project is closed. I am sorry, but I will no longer be answering emails or comments about anything on this project.

It’s been a while since Adam or I have written on this project site. Well the robot it almost done. We have our robot responding to voice commands and doing all sorts of cool stuff. If you look at the Testing page you will be able to see new video we have of our protoype working.

- Mik

Today Adam and I were defeated. But this is just the beginning. Today Adam and I reviewed code structures for our servos and IR scanning abilities. We also started to work on a means of wireless communication. We went to a local store and picked up some cheaper two way radios.

Try number 1:
we disconnected the speaker inside one of the radios and attached it directly to the microphone input on the voice module. That shorted out the circuit or gave us an FF on your BCD Display. Failed

Try number 2:
We reconnected the speaker to the radio and put the microphone inputs to the voice module in parallel. We figured that maybe the resistance of the 16 Ohm speaker would be sense instead of a high/open circuit resistance. We kept getting a “word too long” error or a “word not found” error. We found this had to do with the “transmission over” signal that happens after the push button is released on the radio after a transmission. Failed

Try number 3:
To cut the microphone off after a voice command so the extra noise after a transmission wasn’t heard by the voice module we shorted the push button leads on the radio and wired the push button in series with the microphone as a force stop. That didn’t work either. Failed

On top of all the failures we managed to burn off one of the surface mount capacitors. We were able to patch it with another, larger capacitor but since the capacitor is to big to fit in the radio housing with out shorting we are back to the drawing board.
Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow.

–Mike

After many failed tries earlier today (including finding a bad voice chip and some weirdness with the servos…) I have successfully interfaced the Speech control circuit with the ATmega128 and the servos for the first successful test of the speech control of the robot.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube DirektSpeech Controlled Robot

I only used 3 commands: “Forward”, “Reverse”, and “Stop”. These commands worked great. However, I noticed that eventually I’ll need a microphone preamp on the input so I won’t have to yell at the robot.

Also, notice how it takes a bit for the robot to react to what I say. This is because I have a 1 second delay to make the servos turn. Literally, when I say “Forward” it will turn the servos on for 1 second, then check to see if the input has changed. This length of time can and will be changed on future tests.

–Adam

I made a quick video of the speech circuit working. The schematic we were using was wrong, finally I fixed it and got the circuit working great!

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube DirektVideo for the Speech Circuit actually Working Correctly

In the video, when you see the code “66″ that’s actually an error code, meaning “word not recognized” if I am remembering correctly.

Click the pic for full size.

–Adam

Wow, it has been a while since we updated the site. Since the last update, several things have happened. Hit the jump to find out what.
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12/22/07

The robot base build started today. You can see its progression so far in the pictures after the jump.

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The final components for the Speech Recognition circuit came in today. I put the SOIC RAM chips on the SOIC to DIP PCBs only to find that they didn’t fit well and were nearly impossible to work with. I breadboarded the entire circuit and as you can probably tell from the title of this post, it did not go well. At least I got some LEDs flashing stuff.

Hit the jump for more and a video.

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We have a 3D Model of what the proposed robot base will look like. I used a free software, Google SketchUp found at google.com to make the drawing. Everything is to scale.

- Mike

Check out the Robot Base page or hit the jump for a rough sketch of what the robot’s base configuration will look like.
Some of the materials for this build include:

high-density polyethylene (HDPE)
A snazzy robot head

More details for the hardware configuration to come.

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