Drive calibration
On occasion, you may need to straighten the drive of your Edison robot.
The different versions of Edison have different drive calibration procedures. Please find your version below and follow the steps described.
Edison V2.0
Edison V2.0 contains wheel encoders to ensure that the left and right wheels drive at exactly the same speed. In some cases, one of Edison’s motors will be more efficient than the other. This can cause one wheel to accelerate faster than the other, causing Edison to turn a small amount at the start of a drive command, leading to Edison being off course.
To fix this you can perform an acceleration calibration to ensure that both wheels accelerate evenly.
How to perform an acceleration calibration:
- Download and print off the Acceleration Calibration Barcode here
- Scan the barcode with Edison.
- Press the play button twice.
Edison will then drive back and forth at different speeds performing the calibration. Be sure to give Edison plenty of room to drive freely. If Edison falls off a desk or gets stuck against an obstacle while calibrating, start over from step 2.
The calibration should take less than 2 minutes and Edison should not drive more than a meter in either direction.
See an example of a successful drive calibration in this video:
Struggling to get Edison to read the calibration barcode?
If your Edison’s drive calibration is really off, the robot may not be able to drive straight enough to properly scan the calibration barcode. If you are having this issue, try the following:
- Remove the wheels from Edison.
- Turn the Edison on and place it to the right of the Acceleration Calibration Barcode.
- Press the round button 3 times.
- Slide the Edison robot over the barcode by hand.
- Replace the wheels.
- Press the play button twice to run the calibration.
Edison will then drive back and forth at different speeds performing the calibration. Be sure to give Edison plenty of room to drive freely. If Edison falls off a desk or gets stuck against an obstacle while calibrating, start over from step 1.
The calibration should take less than 2 minutes and Edison should not drive more than a meter in either direction.
Edison V1
Edison V1 can sometimes experience a sideways drift when driving. This is due to small differences in the efficiency of the left and right motors (no two motors can ever have identical efficiencies) that cause the wheels to turn at different speeds. Edison’s drive can be straightened by applying a drive calibration setting. The calibration adjusts the amount of power supplied to each motor to compensate for their differences.
How to apply a drive calibration:
- Go to the firmware checker.
- Follow the steps to first confirm your firmware is up to date.
- Once you have confirmed your firmware is up to date, follow the prompts to the drive calibration section.
- Follow the prompts to apply a drive calibration. If your Edison is turning to the left select one of the “Drift left” options. If your Edison is turning to the right select one of the “Drift right” options.
Drive calibrations do not stack. If the applied calibration did not fully fix your issue, try a larger drive calibration. If you would like to un-apply a previous calibration, select ‘no calibration’.
