Does roomba broadcast sensor data?

[Sean87]

Hi all,

I finally managed to build a CMOS to RS232 converter board and cable and now I am testing my roomba 530 with a simple drive application I found on web. The program just moves roomba to 4 main directions.

I want to write my own program too. But before that I have a question that I think only people who have done it before know the answer.

The quesion is, does roomba immideatly sends back some data when its bumpers hit something? What I mean is using that simple driving app, I can drive roomba into something, I would like to know if at the moment that roomba hits something it sends something back to serial port?

I tried with some serial terminal programs but it seems that when I hit something with the roomba, it does not transfers something back to terminal.

If it is not like this, I read in SCI manual that I can send a command to ask for sensor data, but what I need is to immideatly receive something indicating that roomba has hit something.

Thanks,
Sean.

[mfortuna]

You have to issue an SCI command to get sensor data. The 500 series added new commands that stream sensor data at regular intervals. You can also just poll and read the sensors at your own interval.