I recently received the V1.3 upgrade kits for the my V1.2 hardware. My assumption was that I could reuse the existing enclosure and cabling but I don’t think that is the case. I haven’t been able to find any documentation that explains the upgrade process so I was wondering if it exists and could be posted?
The upgrade kit for Farmbot V1.3 includes the new Farmduino board and waterproof power supply, with heat sinks for the stepper motors, and a power cable for the power supply. However, the Farmduino board has different terminals for the motor and encoder cables, the UTM, and the vacuum, water, and a new LED light strip not present in Farmbot V1.2. The V1.3 kit also uses a Raspberry Pi Data cable, Farmduino
Data cable, and a USB Adapter cable which are not present in the upgrade kit.
The enclosure in the V1.3 documentation is appears to be a different size with mounting stand-offs when compared to the enclosure used in Farmbot V1.2.
I would appreciate hearing from the design and support teams what specifically can be reused from V1.2. Does all the cabling need to be replaced and a new enclosure used? If so, this should really be part of the upgrade kit. I don’t think your intention was to be misleading or provide only some of the required items but the result is the same, I can’t proceed with my upgrade until this get sorted out.
Is anyone else tried to perform the upgrade from V1.2 hardware with the Farmduinno board and new vacuum pump mount?
We don’t yet have documentation for upgrading from one version of the device to another. Utilizing the v1.3 documentation should be sufficient when upgrading to that version with v1.3 parts, though let us know if you run into any other specific problems.
The Farmduino + Power Supply package currently in our shop indeed only contains those two components, which may not be enough to get to “v1.3” depending on how far you want to go with the upgrades and depending on how you have your bot set up.
For example, the v1.2 motor and encoder cables can be plugged into the v1.3 Farmduino without any problem. However, one of the main improvements with v1.3 was the unified encoder connectors that make the electronics easier to work with. If you plan on disassembling/re-assembling your FarmBot often (as a school project for example) this might be a worthy reason to get new cables. But new motor/encoder cables are not required to use Farmduino and so your v1.2 cables can be reused.
The same goes for the enclosure. While v1.3 Farmduino will not readily fit into the v1.2 enclosure, you might not mind because your FarmBot is indoors and simply mounting the Farmduino on the gantry column with a custom plate would be sufficient for you. Or you might have swapped out the enclosure for something else if you have other custom modifications.
Here is the list of everything needed related to the v1.3 Farmduino upgrade:
- v1.3 Farmduino
- Stepper Drivers (you could use the old ones, but we don’t sell Farmduino without them at this time)
- v1.3 Waterproof Power Supply (required unless you add the new connector [compatible with Molex 46991-1004] to your v1.2 PSU. This is a nice upgrade to have because it greatly simplifies the wiring, is safer to work with, and is more purpose-built for FarmBot)
- v1.3 Electronics Box (required unless you don’t need an enclosure at all)
- v1.3 Electronics Mounting Plate (required unless you want to make your own or don’t use an enclosure)
- v1.3 Farmduino Data Cable (v1.2 Arduino cable can maybe be used with modifying the hole layout of the electronics plate to get it all to fit)
- v1.3 Raspberry Pi Power Cable (required to power the Pi from the Farmduino, though these cables are very common and you might already have one from an old smartphone. Alternatively you could still power your Pi separately with a dedicated USB PSU and not need this)
- v1.3 USB Adapter Cable (required, but you could modify the hole layout of the electronics plate to get away without it)
- v1.3 Solenoid Valve and Vacuum Pump Cables (required unless you add the new connectors [compatible with Molex 151048-1206] to your old cables)
- v1.3 LED Lights (optional, but awesome)
- v1.3 UTM Cable (required unless you add the new connector [compatible with Molex 43045-1212] to your old cable or re-map your UTM pins to other pins on the Farmduino, bypassing that connector and using the v1.2 cable without modification)
- v1.3 Motor Cables (optional)
- v1.3 Encoder Cables (optional, but unified connectors might be important to you)
I’ll circle back to this forum topic when we have the remaining components listed above available for individual sale in our shop.
FYI, our shop now has all individual components available for purchase. Cheers!
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