Pololu Simple - Manual (Page 19)

Advanced Settings tab and will generate an error and shut down the motor if it passes these thresholds. This
allows a properly configured controller to avoid over-discharging your batteries.
• Temperature: This is a measurement of the temperature of the device. This reading is used prevent damage
to the device by shutting down the motor when the board gets too hot (the over-temperature threshold is can
be adjusted in the Advanced Settings tab). Please note that this product can get hot enough to burn you during
normal operation. Take care when handling this product or other components connected to it. Parts of the board
be significantly hotter than this reading, so you should not rely on this temperature reading when deciding
whether it is safe to touch the board.
• Up Time: This is the total amount of time that the controller has been running since its last reset or power-up.
The Up Time reading can be used to help identify if the controller has reset unexpectedly. You can determine
the cause of a reset by looking at the pattern of the yellow LED (see
Section 3.5 ), or you can look in the Device
Information window, available from the Device menu. The Up Time reading will overflow back to zero after
49.7 days.
• Baud Rate: This is the current baud rate that the device is using on the TTL serial interface (RX and TX
lines) in units of bits per second (bps). By default, the device is in Auto-detect baud rate mode, so this value will
be “N/A” until the baud rate is detected. After a 0xAA byte is received on the RX line, the device will detect the
baud rate and you can see it here. Please note that the Baud Rate display in the Status tab has nothing to do with
the USB virtual COM port (it doesn’t matter what baud rate you use when connecting to the virtual COM port).
• RC Period: This is the period of the RC signal on the RC1 input channel. You can use this reading to help
you make the RC period settings in the Advanced Settings tab more strict so that the controller can better identify
bad RC signals. If the signal on RC1 is invalid, this reading is reported as “N/A”.
Manually set speed (Serial/USB
mode only)
The Manually Set Speed box in Status
tab allows you to control the speed of
your motor over USB by using a
scrollbar or by typing in a speed. To
use this feature, the Input Mode
(configured in the Input Settings tab)
must be USB/Serial, and there must be
no errors currently stopping the motor.
You will need to press the Resume
button if you have not disabled Safe Start or if you previously pressed the Stop Motor button.
Pololu Simple Motor Controller User's Guide © 2001–2014 Pololu Corporation
3. Getting Started Page 19 of 101