[Pioneer-users] PeopleBot Sick Laser Issues

["Eric Avery" <ericavery@xxxxxxxx>]

I am working with a peoplebot and I have two issues with the Sick laser. 

First the Sick laser powers on at boot (i.e. when the computers serial port
becomes active) how can I change this? I though I remembered reading
something about a setting somewhere but I can't for the life of me remember
where. I would like the laser to behave as it does on our other two pioneer
DX robots. That is, the laser is powered on by the ArSick Aria class on
connection initialization not when the onboard computer boots up. 

Second and more problematic, I can't connect to the laser. I have tried both
the Demo.exe and our own code that works just fine on two other pioneers. I
believe this may be a com port issue but I'm not 100% sure. The robot was
shipped with Linux but we have changed it to Windows XP and I don't believe
the laser has worked since. The Device Manager lists com 1, 2 and 3, all
active and working properly. I know 1 is the robot and 2 is the touch screen
so I'm assuming the laser is on 3 (like the pioneers) but I can't connect to
it. I have verified that the serial cable is hooked up to the laser and to
the motherboard but still no joy. Is there any way for me to do diagnostics
on the laser to see if I can communicate with it outside of ARIA? I'm open
to any suggestions as to how I can figure out what's going on...

Thanks
Eric Avery