Our two problems...

[TheOtherGuy]

we managed to get our camera working today. Here's what we did:

1. download the Kevin Watson's camera code (we used the bells and whistles version)

2. Make sure everything is plugged in. This includes the fully charged backup battery, main battery, pwm cable to the camera for power (plugged into any pwm port), pwm01 and pwm02 connected to pan and tilt respectively, and the TTL - RS232 converter chip is inserted correctly with a pwm cable running to the 3-pin RS232 port on the camera

3. make sure the lens cap is off of the camera and the camera switch is on.

4. turn on the microcontroller and, after building the camera code, download to the microcontroller.

5. press the reset button or turn off the microcontroller and turn it back on. You should see the green light and possibly the red one on the camera. At that point, if there is no target in sight, the camera should go into it's search mode.

6. check the terminal window on the computer (forgot to mention: make sure you leave the microcontroller connected so you can see the messages in the terminal window) If it says No camera data., you may need to check all the connections to make sure they work and then press the reset button. When we were working on the camera today, we found that the TTL - RS232 converter chip was somewhat loose, and after checking it and getting it on firmly, it seemed to work.

that's about all we did, and after much testing, it finally worked. You may find that it takes several days to locate the problem, but don't give up, the camera is very important (I think) in the game this year.