Connecting your ArcBotics Bluetooth Module – Mac OS X

First make sure that the red LED on the Bluetooth board is blinking. If it is not you will need to turn off power to Hexy, connect power to the board to get the CPU started, then apply power solely to the servo power connector. Power can be disconnected from the other power connector. I use a 9 volt alkaline battery for this.

If you are using Sparki simply plug the Bluetooth module into the correct ports as described here and turn Sparki on. (Make sure Sparki isn’t near the edge of table when you do that, there may be old code that will make Sparki roll off the table!)

Open “System Preferences” and select “Bluetooth”. If there are no devices set up, a “setup new device”button will be present.



Otherwise click the “+” button and select “setup new device”. Either way will bring up the “Bluetooth Setup Assistant” dialog that will automatically search for Bluetooth devices and display those that it can find.



Select the “ArcBotics” device and click the “Continue” button.
System should automatically cycle through “0000” pairing and conclude with a successful pairing.


Click the “Quit” button and return to the Bluetooth “System Preferences” dialog where you will see the ArcBotics device shown as “not connected”.



Select the “ArcBotics” device and click the pulldown arrow next to the “gear” icon, near the lower left corner of the dialog, and select “Edit Serial Ports…”



This should bring up a dialog whose content is grayed out and then will automatically select the RS-232 protocol and properly name the device and set the “Service” to “Dev B”.



Modify the name if you wish and click the “Apply” button.This will return you to the “Bluetooth” system preferences dialog where the device should be listed as “Connected”.



Open a serial application and select the given port to communicate with the Bluetooth device. PoMoCo should automatically use this device if the USB cable is disconnected.