#robotics Logs

Feb 04 2012

00:48 rue_shop kat, I can tell its driving you stirrcrazy
00:48 rue_shop its not you
00:48 rue_shop you need to do things
00:53 dumbass i keep getting told i cannot do things
00:57 dumbass the barn is not up, i cannot even continue moving down here
02:28 e_mohr parks a D9 in kats driveway along with a box of some RC controlled linear actuators and a re
02:29 e_mohr looks carefully, oops, I think there WAS a mailbox on the left side of the drivewa
02:29 rue_mohr meh, drive by feel
02:29 dumbass <cough>
02:31 e_mohr runs back and drops a 75m spool of hookup wire on the track, runs
02:32 dumbass all that won't help if the landowner won't let me put up a barn put lights in a barn, etc etc etc
02:32 rue_mohr this week I learned that hawii is run by genorator, has been for years
02:32 dumbass duh
02:32 dumbass what else would it be run by?
02:33 rue_mohr I'm in canada
02:33 dumbass ok, where else do humans get 1000's of megawatts?
02:33 rue_mohr the idea of a town/state/island running of petrolium is almost unfathomable
02:33 dumbass all the island nations run oil/diesel gennys
02:34 rue_mohr yea
02:34 rue_mohr thats crazy
02:34 dumbass Burmuda hollowed out a small mountain to put diesls in
02:35 rue_mohr wow
02:35 dumbass HAwaii flirted with otec, but didn't follow thru
02:35 rue_mohr it starts to make ya understand why the usa will destroy anyone getting in the way of their oil supply
02:35 dumbass the Marshalesse got fed up with the usa and put chinese solar panels on every island a few yrs ago
02:36 rue_mohr aparently the tap water has to be chilled to drink
02:36 rue_mohr comes out almost boiling
02:36 dumbass a few islands have toyed with biomass feeding various boiler-turbin-genny systems
02:36 dumbass on Hawaii? no
02:36 rue_mohr cant recall where
02:37 rue_mohr but the amount of energy to get steam isn't that high
02:37 dumbass only one island has an active volcano: Kilauea Volcano
02:38 dumbass Iceland has developed some geothermal electricity, they have a massive volcano
02:38 dumbass there's some geothermal in midwest usa too
02:38 dumbass the Colorado river was once blocked by a lava flow, apparently that lava funnel is still active
02:43 dumbass Mauna Loa last erupted in 1984, technically, it may still be active, as it has temors
02:47 dumbass of course, Yellowstone park is still volcanicaly active, with hotwater springs, but no lava flows
02:49 rue_mohr k
02:49 rue_mohr I'm going down now, gnight
02:49 rue_mohr 785-1140-5-nd
02:50 dumbass fet array
10:14 dumbass http://www.chacha.com/topic/cell-phone/gallery/2174/penis-related-autocorrects/17440
11:34 rue_mohr hah
11:35 m_itx knocks on rue_mohr's window and wonders why school hasn't sta
11:36 rue_mohr I have a half hour left
11:36 rue_mohr I just finished breakfast
11:37 Tom_itx me too
11:37 Tom_itx eggs and hashbrowns
11:37 dumbass not me
11:37 Tom_itx and juice
11:37 rue_mohr I think kat eats speratticly
11:37 dumbass sporadically
11:38 rue_mohr see! see! I told ya!
11:43 rue_mohr kat, are you aware of a PNP version of the uln2003?
11:45 Tom_itx where do you set the dirctory FF saves downloaded files to?
11:46 dumbass i save em where i wanna
11:46 Tom_itx how?
11:46 dumbass "save as"
11:46 Tom_itx i don't have that option
11:47 Tom_itx open with or save file
11:47 Tom_itx ff 9.0.1
11:49 dumbass UDN2891A and UDN2892A , but they are 8-darlingtons, not 7, so are not pin compatable, which is prolly a good thing
11:49 dumbass Tom i dunno
11:51 Tom_itx user downloads
11:51 Tom_itx found it
11:51 dumbass UDN2596A
11:53 dumbass M54580
11:53 dumbass M54561
11:53 dumbass M54564
11:53 dumbass M63800
11:53 dumbass M63840
11:54 Tom_itx no dumbass could answer like that
11:55 dumbass yeas, it's strange, isn't it?
11:55 dumbass afk a few
12:02 dumbass .bak
12:04 dumbass but if you ask rue, i know nothing of my surroundings
13:07 bedah hi :)
13:45 Steffanx Lo
14:24 TaffyRobotic Hi....
14:41 SolarNRT Hi everybody
14:42 SolarNRT I've made a light tracking robot
14:42 SolarNRT Here's my youtube video
14:42 Steffanx Nice video P
14:42 SolarNRT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CReRQb_UZj0
14:42 Steffanx :P
14:42 SolarNRT This video is mine
14:42 SolarNRT The invention is my own
14:42 SolarNRT and this is me in the video
14:43 Steffanx Welcome in the UK :)
14:44 Steffanx You showed a prototype before didn't you?
14:45 SolarNRT yes but this is the very first time the entire system tracks light and moves accordingly
14:45 SolarNRT Tomorrow, weather permitting I wish to test it outdoors
14:52 SolarNRT What do you guys think?
14:53 Steffanx I'm actually more interested in the result in sunlight :)
14:54 Steffanx Your current algorithm is very simple right now, isnt it?
14:55 SolarNRT Yes its just if ((leftldr-rightldr)>50) {
14:55 SolarNRT xcounter();
14:55 SolarNRT It used to be 5 then it kept knocking
14:55 SolarNRT Left right left right and wouldn't stay still
14:55 SolarNRT Then I increased it up to 50 and it was still when facing the sun, but when not facing the sun it couldn't find it
14:56 SolarNRT I've done a serial monitor on my arduino, when it is not facing the sun, the analog inputs are in teh 200 300 range
14:56 SolarNRT When it faces teh sun its in teh 800 900 range
14:57 SolarNRT So perhaps I should have two nested if else statements so that if none of the inputs are above 500 say, make the sensitivity 5, but if an input is about 500 make the sensitivity 50
15:00 dumbass why do you want it to track light? don't you want it to point to the sun?
15:01 SolarNRT Yes, but the sun's angle relative to the horizon changes during the day
15:01 Steffanx How would you do it dumbass? Get the current location of the sun from the internet and move that to location? :)
15:01 dumbass remember it from yesterday, and point there today
15:02 SolarNRT If you do that, you're going to need added circuitry to determine where this portable system is placed, what its lat long is, what angle of a hill its on, what angle you placed the dish relative to north
15:02 dumbass if the sun is on the edge of adark cloud, the edge of the cloud will be the brightest place in the sky
15:03 dumbass that will put it a few degrees off, and i have seen damage caused by those errors
15:07 SolarNRT damage?
15:07 SolarNRT I.e. the focal point not going to where it is supposed to?
15:07 dumbass correct
15:08 dumbass the collector aimed at the edge of the could instead of where memory says the sun is, the cloud moves and exposes the sun off-axis
15:09 SolarNRT How do you advise I improve my desgn to compensate for cloud coverage? Or shall I just make sure there's nothing that can catch fire in range of the dish?
15:11 mbass got a personal guided tour of this facility in 1984: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Total_Energy_Project
15:13 SolarNRT woah, they were doing this when I was not even born!
15:13 SolarNRT Makes me feel kind of lame
15:13 SolarNRT But still, I could make one of those if I nicked enough people's sky tv dishes
15:15 SolarNRT dumbass, what did you learn from your tour when I was still in my mummy's tummy?
15:15 dumbass a lot
15:16 dumbass and people disregard all i learned then, and haveto relearn it
15:16 SolarNRT So what I'm doing is possible, it can be done and in fact it has been done
15:16 dumbass http://www.solarserver.com/uploads/pics/dish_collector.jpg
15:18 SolarNRT why is it got crosses on it?
15:18 SolarNRT has
15:19 dumbass distributed blackout to lower power output
15:20 SolarNRT Why would you want to lower the power output?
15:20 dumbass back then, there was one at the Newnan facility, it was horribly overpriced
15:20 dumbass to simulate clouds, i imagine
15:20 rue_mohr I could prolly pull 5 or 6 sat dishes out the trash per week if I kept an eye open
15:21 SolarNRT :o
15:21 SolarNRT Send me some, I'll pay you
15:21 SolarNRT Post me 5 and I'll send you 50 quid
15:21 rue_mohr I'm in canada
15:21 rue_mohr ever dealt with canadian shipping?
15:21 SolarNRT Then that's pointless, the delivery would be too much
15:22 SolarNRT I asked someone to post me some seal meat and some tobacco from canada once, I sent the cash but neither one arrived
15:22 rue_mohr get old mirrors and make a creznel reflector
15:22 rue_mohr freznel
15:22 rue_mohr I hate theis keybaord
15:22 rue_mohr tobbaco dosn't come from canada
15:22 SolarNRT I tried making my own parabola with a dremel trio once, I now use that parabolo to mount my laptop on
15:22 rue_mohr nobody who has access to seal meat has internet
15:23 SolarNRT lol
15:23 rue_mohr flat
15:23 rue_mohr freznel
15:23 SolarNRT Isn't it easier just to glue mirror tiles onto the inside of a skydish like I've done already?
15:23 rue_mohr not if you can get dishes
15:24 rue_mohr you just need to point each mirror pointing right on a flat surface and you have a freznel
15:24 SolarNRT How do I mount the mirrors at the right angle?
15:25 SolarNRT Sounds like a lot of effort when a sky dish is already the right shape and I got mine from a dodgy council estate in the trash
15:25 SolarNRT for nothing
15:25 SolarNRT I just picked it up
15:25 rue_mohr you use a reference light and get each mirror to direct it to your target
15:25 rue_mohr its not much more effort
15:26 rue_mohr I played with it
15:26 SolarNRT I tried that and lamp light in a small flat vs sunlight have different angles, like a lamp will change by a few degrees depending on your point of origin, but sunlish is like 89.99999999999999 degrees
15:26 rue_mohr it worked great, but I didn't make it strong enough to hold up in weather, I think almost all the mirrors have fallen off
15:26 rue_mohr I have two good sized boxes of 5cmx5cm mirrors
15:27 SolarNRT Nice idea rue, but I'll stick with bargain basement mirrors and recycled sky dishes
15:27 SolarNRT I can't see any cost savings
15:27 SolarNRT Or labour savings
15:27 rue_mohr so how many dishes do you have now?
15:27 SolarNRT 2
15:27 rue_mohr how big?
15:27 rue_mohr 4 feet?
15:27 SolarNRT 63cm diam
15:27 rue_mohr ah
15:28 SolarNRT I'm expecting this to be able to heat up a cup of coffee in 15 minutes!
15:28 SolarNRT if the sun's out
15:29 SolarNRT Have you seen my latest video yet rue?
15:30 SolarNRT www.youtube.com/watch?v=CReRQb_UZj0
15:30 SolarNRT This is me, the video is mine, the project is mine
15:30 SolarNRT Its got two gearboxes, two stepper motors, 4 light dependent resistors
15:30 SolarNRT a load of mirrors on the inside of a sky dish
15:30 rue_mohr oo
15:31 SolarNRT And today's the first time I've ever managed to get it to move all by tself
15:31 rue_mohr looks a little slow, but its not like your having to chase the sun :)
15:32 rue_mohr dc motors or steppers?
15:32 dumbass another reaon to have it point where memory says the sun is, because you don't need to move it so fast when the clouds blow away
15:34 SolarNRT steppers
15:35 rue_mohr cool
15:35 SolarNRT I accept what you say dumbass, but how do I get the dish to know where its pointed, a digital compass and an angleometer?
15:35 rue_mohr how big, did you need to put much reduction on them?
15:36 SolarNRT Yeah, I've got a 35mm pinion gear on the steppers (steel) going to a 152mm diam steel gear
15:36 rue_mohr just potentiometers
15:36 dumbass the sun will be in almost exactly the same place from day to day
15:36 rue_mohr or just use the stepper tracking
15:36 SolarNRT Yeah but its a portable system, I won't place the system exactly the same place each time nor exactly the same angle each time
15:37 SolarNRT Its designed for festivals, camping and kayaking
15:37 rue_mohr ah
15:37 SolarNRT I want to kayak this thing in bits to an island and set it up to make free cups of coffee
15:37 SolarNRT Instead of weights I can add stones to the counterbalance tray
15:37 dumbass make it bigger, and tow it behind the kayak
15:37 SolarNRT Bigger?
15:37 rue_mohr you could use the plate in a coffeemaker as the target for your solar device
15:37 SolarNRT Where do I get a bigger skydish from?
15:38 dumbass make it
15:38 rue_mohr kat, he didn't want to do that
15:38 SolarNRT I thought about using some 5mm bore copper piping and sinking it into clay and painting that oven black then wrapping the backside of it with pvc coated rockwool to insulate it
15:38 SolarNRT How do you MAKE a big skydish that will fit in Lexi's car?
15:39 dumbass sections
15:39 rue_mohr oragami
15:39 SolarNRT I think its better just to have more smaller compact dishes than one large unhandleable dish
15:39 SolarNRT I think if I could get 10-20 of these things to an island I could haev a hot bath there for free!
15:39 dumbass you are wrong, you will eat more power steering 10 2ft dishes than one 10ft dish
15:39 rue_mohr odd the exhaust temp is 246c?
15:40 SolarNRT Dumbass you are right about energy efficiency, but I think to make something so large is beyong what I can handle with a council flat and a honda civic
15:41 SolarNRT Also a bigger dish involves a bigger motor, maybe the wiper motor would work on a bigger dish!?
15:41 SolarNRT I've made most of the H bridge for it
15:42 dumbass you have 10 hours to move the mount shaft 1/2 turn, how much power do you think you need??
15:42 SolarNRT With stepper motors I'm using 5v pulses at about 120mAmps
15:43 SolarNRT And there are 2
15:43 SolarNRT A windscreen wiper motor uses 12 volts and anywhere from 5 to 15 amps
15:43 SolarNRT with load
15:43 dumbass [16:32] <SolarNRT> Also a bigger dish involves a bigger motor, maybe the wiper motor would work on a bigger dish!?
15:43 dumbass [16:33] <dumbass> you have 10 hours to move the mount shaft 1/2 turn, how much power do you think you need??
15:43 SolarNRT Maybe 2 amps no load
15:43 SolarNRT And even then the motors aren't pulsing all the time, only when the sun moves
15:44 SolarNRT Your question is a valid one, especially if I choose to put solar panels on teh outside to allow the system to self power
15:44 dumbass oh, well, if the little stepper motors are idle and not being used most of the time, by all means put on a 200hp motor!
15:45 SolarNRT Also if I had 2 200hp motors and a 15m diameter skydish, and I coated it in mirros and I just upscaled what I've done. WHERE THE HELL DO I PUT IT?
15:45 SolarNRT The football field?
15:46 SolarNRT The Celtic fans would go mental
15:46 dumbass hell if i know, you are the one who said you needed bigger motors
15:46 SolarNRT In actual fact, I don't
15:46 dumbass you gave no logic for needing bigger motors
15:46 SolarNRT My steppers are doing fine
15:46 dumbass [16:32] <SolarNRT> Also a bigger dish involves a bigger motor, maybe the wiper motor would work on a bigger dish!?
15:46 mbass goes
15:48 SolarNRT What about turning these things into alcohol distilleries?
15:48 SolarNRT Couldn't I make hooch out of these?
16:44 thylobot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J_eh1HPu54&list=UUdqsKNQEBiUB6Ox_c-LxT2A&index=16&feature=plcp
17:05 thylobot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byoapVYemr8
17:24 Steffanx That last one is nice
17:46 rue_mohr sigh
17:46 rue_mohr the roommate completely failed to keep the fire going, again
17:47 dumbass damned human
17:51 Tom_itx i've learned one thing
17:51 Tom_itx rely on nobody
17:51 Tom_itx woops
17:51 Tom_itx maybe two
17:52 Tom_itx rely on nobody and trust nobody
17:52 dumbass nobody Address: nobody!~UFO@unaffiliated/outoufcontrol/bot/ufo/x-7872754
17:53 Tom_itx make fun
17:54 dumbass i cannot
17:54 Tom_itx <dumbass> nobody Address: nobody!~UFO@unaffiliated/outoufcontrol/bot/ufo/x-7872754
17:55 dumbass shall i never speak, lest it be called "making fun of" ?
17:56 Tom_itx do as you will, you have a will of your own
17:57 dumbass i do not know what to do then, as you didn't answer me,
17:58 Tom_itx you are a well educated experienced person i'm sure you can make a wise choice
17:59 dumbass "speak and be misunderstood" vs "never speak" , there is no good choice
17:59 dumbass as i am not the one misunderstanding me, it shouldn't be me making the choice
18:00 m_itx shrugs it off and move
18:26 scanf can anyone recommend a decent cordless drill to replace my $15 black&decker 7.2v
18:42 futuresoon what's an actuator that could control the pushing of one of these buttons? http://www.sparkfun.com/products/97
18:42 futuresoon (for when having a button isn't automatic enough lol)
18:43 Tom_itx add a transistor to it
18:45 futuresoon i don't really have a lot of access to the circuit itself, it's a piece of consumer electronics to control one of those heating pads for therapy and a little opaque to analysis (for me at least)
18:45 futuresoon i was thinking of a literal physical actuator to push it
18:45 futuresoon i guess i mean mechanical
19:17 Tom_itx rue_mohr what did we get done today in class?
20:12 rue_mohr we got most of the mechanical worked out for hte base rotation sensor
20:13 rue_mohr proved the code he wrote last week
20:21 thylobot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWa2CrNNXws
20:49 kng_stupid wonders, without making fun of it, what a thylobo
21:02 -card.freenode.net:#robotics- [freenode-info] channel trolls and no channel staff around to help? please check with freenode support: http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#gettinghelp
21:09 fckng_stupid you wouldn't pronounce " i'll " like " ill " , so why would you pronounce " you're " like " your " ?
21:48 rue_shop ok so I'm supposed to make an avr that can be my dig scope
21:48 rue_shop k
21:49 rue_shop I found a wired up mega8, dont see why not use that
21:51 rue_shop that looks like it'll work
22:25 Tom_itx ok, new batch of cables to go with the programmers..
22:39 e_shop tries to find the pcb sta
22:39 Tom_itx rue_shop what are you working on?
22:41 rue_shop getting etching working agai
22:41 rue_shop n
22:41 rue_shop damn
22:41 rue_shop ever since I got the microsoft keybaord I can type on anything anymore
22:41 Tom_itx :)
22:42 Tom_itx downloading a studio update for studio4
22:42 rue_shop Tom_itx, p.s. thanks for getting into silk screening
22:43 Tom_itx how's that?
22:43 Tom_itx oh
22:43 Tom_itx paint type
22:43 Tom_itx i thought you meant pcb
22:43 Tom_itx yeah i finally figured out how to do it without screwing up my screen when i clean it out
22:44 Tom_itx did you ever get yours goin?
22:45 rue_shop no
22:46 Tom_itx you got all the stuff though right?
22:46 Tom_itx i made a spare frame
22:47 rue_shop I even made a frame
22:48 Tom_itx what did you plan to silkscreen?
23:03 rue_mohr either pcb's or... something random
23:16 fckng_stupid ,
23:21 rue_shop yay, the plotter works
23:21 rue_shop I greased the chair of doom, and WOW
23:22 rue_shop its like it has ball bearings
23:22 Tom_itx apparently these new usb enabled xmegas are quite the chips
23:22 Tom_itx cool,
23:22 Tom_itx mine has 2 wheels broken now
23:25 rue_shop I have ... 3 5 way wheel sets in the collection now...
23:25 Tom_itx i finally got smart and added locator nub holes for my usb plugs and the switches. man that saves time on assembly
23:26 rue_shop hmm new 'tank' is little fat
23:26 Tom_itx takes more juice to fill it ehh?
23:28 rue_shop missing.....
23:28 rue_shop bubbles!
23:28 Tom_itx atmel's search engine really sucks
23:29 Tom_itx do you have xmegas on your page yet?
23:29 fckng_stupid shame you cannot ask Tiggr
23:29 Tom_itx i wanted a parametric table
23:29 fckng_stupid oh, if you have rue doing it, then Tiggr isn't needed
23:29 rue_shop found half the bubbles
23:29 rue_shop I dont do xmega
23:29 fckng_stupid i gave you a parametric page
23:30 Tom_itx i slept since then
23:30 fckng_stupid i didn't mean to make fun
23:31 Tom_itx ok
23:31 rue_shop I cant find the part that makes the bubbles
23:32 Tom_itx looks like the A4U is 44 pin and the A3U is 64
23:33 Tom_itx and i forget what dean told me about the A3BU but i think it has a rtc on it
23:33 Tom_itx B3 is a usb lcd controller
23:34 Tom_itx as is the B1
23:34 Tom_itx different size though
23:37 Tom_itx 32Mhz, 10 spi, 50 IO, 1 USB, 7 UART, 16 ADC 12bit, 2 DAC 12bit, 7 timers, 22 pwm, 22 input capture, RTC
23:37 Tom_itx pretty good wish list there
23:38 rue_shop hey, kat told me how to make a spray etcher, and I got parts, and... nothing happened
23:40 fckng_stupid you know she's a dumbass
23:44 Tom_itx oh wow, studio4 4.19 added a bunch more device support
23:46 Tom_itx oh, all ^^ that for under $10
23:46 Tom_itx quan 1
23:49 e_shop waits for the brew to hea
23:52 e_shop finds a 'for etchant test' scrap pcb cu
23:54 Tom_itx i wonder if this is an lcd interface or driver they put in this thing
23:54 Tom_itx looks more like a driver
23:56 Tom_itx the "A" series doesn't have it just the "B"
23:56 rue_shop for raw lcd panels
23:57 rue_shop I should look at repraps sometime
23:57 Tom_itx they got me making a board layout for one
23:57 rue_shop there is free software for operating them I presume?
23:57 Tom_itx probably so
23:57 Tom_itx i don't know much about them
23:57 Tom_itx ask Triffid_Hunter
23:57 Tom_itx he's got one
23:57 rue_shop soon people wont know how to make one wihtout having one to make parts
23:57 rue_shop self upgrading machines
23:58 rue_shop oh I do hope this etchant is ok
23:58 fckng_stupid .
23:58 rue_shop I cant tell if its etching the baord or just cleaning it
23:59 e_shop makes sure the bottle didn't say 'win