#robotics Logs

Apr 04 2012

00:00 rue_house if you use it with this little bridge rectifier, you can reverse it too
00:01 iR0b0t1 >90vdc
00:01 iR0b0t1 that's a lot of vdc you got thar
00:01 rue_house I wonder if toner will suspend ok in water
00:01 rue_house iR0b0t1, its quite workable
00:02 rue_house you can pull it out the middle of a 12V -> 120V inverter
00:02 iR0b0t1 Wait, wouldn't a shop vac be an induction motor...?
00:02 rue_house nope
00:02 rue_house series wired universal
00:02 iR0b0t1 You mean the handheld ones
00:02 iR0b0t1 hmm
00:02 rue_house no, the plug in ones
00:03 rue_house I'm going to use them to swing the person around in my 10' motorized gyro cage
00:03 theBear me first !
00:04 rue_house ever mixed toner and water?
00:04 rue_house ver put a cdwriter laser on a plotter?
00:04 orlok toner and water?
00:05 orlok i'm curious
00:05 rue_house mix toner and water to create a 'thin' paste and apply it evenly to a circuit board
00:05 rue_house dry thetoner out without heating it much
00:06 rue_house use the plotter with a writer laser head to fuse the toner onto the board
00:06 theBear hmmm... even if water doesn't work, there's gotta be some common alcahol or SOMETHING that will suspend it nicely
00:06 rue_house clean off excess toner and etch
00:06 rue_house oooo
00:06 rue_house good point
00:06 rue_house somehting that evaporates
00:06 theBear evaporates AND mixes nicely/easily with toner
00:07 theBear old photocopiers always smelled a little like some obscure kinda alcahol, maybe lookk them up
00:07 rue_house {8-s actetone.....
00:07 theBear pfft, i can add rnandom letters to words too :)
00:08 rue_house not my fault, I have a bad d key
00:14 theBear hehe
01:13 katsmeow-afk damned centurylink
01:36 katsmeow-afk . ec has been idle 6wks 1day 17hrs 33mins 16secs
01:37 katsmeow-afk ivan`` has been idle 1wk 3days 14hrs 44mins 18secs
01:38 katsmeow-afk . norro has been idle 6days 10hrs 39mins 4secs
01:38 katsmeow-afk interesting, i got a channel dump of where norro is
01:39 katsmeow-afk warebec|hat has been idle 3wks 23hrs 51mins 34secs
02:44 katsmeow-afk bad url:
02:44 katsmeow-afk http://www.differencebetween.net/category/business/marketing-bu%20the%20way%20the%20procedure%20is%20being%20performed%20to%20the%20patient,%20whether%20alternative%20measures%20can%20as%20well%20be%20done,%20and%20the%20probable%20consequences%20that%20can%20result%20from%20the%20procedure.%20Practices%20differ%20in%20the%20midst%20of%20physicians,%20but%20the%20individual%20can%20have%20their%20throat%20sprayed%20with%20anaesthesia%20to%20l
03:12 katsmeow-afk two 18-wheel trailers in the air by tornado: http://raycomgroup.images.worldnow.com/images/17323176_BG2.jpg
03:51 katsmeow-afk dratted LVC374 is still the olde wierd pinout of the '374
03:51 katsmeow-afk i was hoping it was like the abt/F/etc '574
03:51 katsmeow-afk cause there's 2000 of them for $10
06:04 tsmeow-afk would like to point out, if you soldered all 2000 of 74ABT373 in parallel, you could get 128 amps per pin, or a total of 1024 amps per 8-bits, at ttl line driver le
06:09 Skwint by combining this effect with the electric chair, it may be possible to communicate with the afterlife at 11500 baud
06:09 tsmeow-afk never considered
06:10 theBear hmmm.... /me tries to think of a use for a 128amp ttl matrix
06:10 katsmeow-afk light 12,800 leds per bit?
06:11 katsmeow-afk lined up side by side, that's a string 0.6km long
06:11 theBear where am i gonna get 12,800 leds ?
06:12 katsmeow-afk i cannot solve *all* your problems, bear ;-)
06:13 Triffid_Hunter theBear: same place that's selling 2000 chips for $10 ;)
06:13 theBear pfft, what's the use of you then ?
06:13 katsmeow-afk solving the otehr problems!
06:13 theBear ahh, very good, you may remain
06:14 katsmeow-afk i am pretty good at making new problems as well
06:14 theBear meh, if yer so good then why haven't yer ever made me one eh ?
06:14 theBear meh, cartoon > you guys and i'm outta screens :) bbl
06:15 katsmeow-afk i tried! i pointed out all those illegal mic radios at really great prices!
06:15 theBear you pointed out half a radio mic that's probably illegal AND wouldn't work for the same reasons :)
06:15 theBear heh, might make a good random noise source
06:16 theBear real random, none of that white stuff
06:16 katsmeow-afk can you think of a better problem?
06:17 Skwint the growing population of stupid people
06:17 Skwint mind you, 1000 amps might solve that too :)
06:17 katsmeow-afk glad i could help :-)
06:21 katsmeow-afk did you see the pic of the two 18-wheel trailers up in the tornado in Tx yesterday? ABC news this morning says they'll show video of them taking off
06:22 katsmeow-afk i'd like to see them landing too
06:22 theBear interesting
06:22 katsmeow-afk two 18-wheel trailers in the air by tornado: http://raycomgroup.images.worldnow.com/images/17323176_BG2.jpg
06:23 katsmeow-afk they are *way* up in the air
06:24 theBear hehe yeah, i aint seen one do that before
06:24 katsmeow-afk one near center of the pic, one on the left edge
06:24 katsmeow-afk there's prolly more, we just don't see them
06:25 theBear yeah, those trailer-shaped things
06:29 katsmeow-afk "the downtown airport is reporting an unusual number of 18-wheeler landings"
06:33 katsmeow-afk oh man ,, http://abcnews.go.com/US/tornadoes-tear-texas/story?id=16066504#3 , several are in the air at 1:14
06:38 theBear jeez, they couldn't have doctored it a little to give more than 1% contrast ?
06:38 katsmeow-afk i agree
06:39 theBear i'm struggling to pick the sky from the countryside, i got no idea what's in the twister bit
06:53 katsmeow-afk this is the first time i have seen this mistake : And not only would this plant-based solar be cheap, but it would be easy to manufacturer.
06:53 Skwint I thought plants were already solar powered?
06:54 theBear i thought plants weren't manufactured :)
06:54 theBear or manufacturered
06:54 katsmeow-afk heh
06:54 Skwint manufacturisated
06:57 katsmeow-afk i am wondering about the plant ,, umm, parts,, if they disassemble the plant , and put it on glass, they don't need to waterit any more? and it won't grow wild and cover your house? no need to mow the solar panels?
07:09 katsmeow-afk http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/abc_tractor_trailer_air_dm_120404_wg.jpg
07:10 katsmeow-afk bear, 0:19 on : http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-tornadoes-end-south-expecting-fresh-round-storms/story?id=16068618
07:13 theBear nah, abc news lost me
07:13 tsmeow-afk goes to put up paw
08:11 sw0rdfish Hey.
08:12 theBear ho
08:12 theBear jadew, wtf are you doing her e?
08:13 jadew robots! :P
08:13 jadew rue invited me to this channel, came here to learn electronics
08:16 theBear you know rue ? wtf ?
08:16 theBear you are the jadew i know ?
08:16 jadew no, who are you?
08:16 jadew of course I am
08:16 theBear what who ? i'm confused
08:17 theBear i've had rue as a houseguest you know ? i'm like, mr awesome
08:17 jadew hah, nice, didn't know he's aussie
08:17 theBear he's not, he's from the other side of the world
08:17 theBear long long ago a few of us robotical people met up
08:17 jadew neat
08:17 theBear ow ! run over my toe with the chair !
08:18 theBear ##electronics has a bunch of monkies in it these days, but i learnt a LOT of electronics there over the years
08:19 jadew #electronics has way too much traffic to be able to have a decent conversation
08:19 theBear sometimes, other times it's all good
08:19 theBear much larger selection of smart people in the background there 24/7 ... this place gets pretty quiet a lot of hours
08:20 jadew I noticed
08:23 theBear i been away a lot, but i'm working on weeding out the idiots and background noise at the moment.... all the other ops are kinda mia
08:42 Triffid_Hunter ##electronics has +e or whatever it is which prevents me changing nickname when not logged in.. that's the sole reason I'm not there now
08:42 SolarNRG Hi guys, I put the crucible with some beer cans into the microwave outside today, here's the video link of my first attempt at casting recycled aluminium. I'd love to hear what you think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tqpAdM7pZI
08:43 Triffid_Hunter SolarNRG: canned drinks have vinyl on the inside, tends to ruin your ingots with impurities, also the aluminium is so thin that it burns as quickly as it melts
08:45 SolarNRG After 1hrs 30mins no melting, only foul smell, then I chucked graphite in, another half an hour, a bit hotter, but still no melting
08:45 SolarNRG What am I doing wrong, help?
08:45 Triffid_Hunter maybe it was in a cold spot?
08:46 Triffid_Hunter only certain spots in the microwave get the peaks of the standing waves, that's what the rotating carousel is for
08:46 Triffid_Hunter also, did you disable the fan that blows air through the cavity? warning: the magnetron and electronics need cooling, but we don't want it vented over our crucible, vent it outside instead
08:47 SolarNRG No the fan's fine
08:48 SolarNRG You think I should try again with masking tape over the seals?
08:51 Triffid_Hunter yep
08:51 rue_house SolarNRG, microwaves exite water to heat food
08:51 Skwint actually, I'm not sure that's true
08:51 rue_house they are actually shorted out by metal
08:52 rue_house Skwint, then maybe you can work out why he cant melt beer cans8 in his microwave :)
08:54 Skwint the jury on the web appears to be out so I will refrain from making a definitive statement :)
08:54 Skwint maybe if he left the beer in the cans?
08:55 Skwint open, clearly :p
08:55 SolarNRG Well why were there NO sparks?
08:55 SolarNRG After 2 whole hours, the microwave is fine, and the crucible only got a bit warm
08:56 SolarNRG The paint's all gone
08:56 SolarNRG The cans are now brown
08:58 Triffid_Hunter brown sounds like the paint is only half gone
08:58 Triffid_Hunter SolarNRG: I have read that the crucible needs to be a special material to pick up the heat effectively
08:59 SolarNRG Chemistry says I should line my crucible with a graphite lining
08:59 SolarNRG Arduino says the microwave can detect there's metal in it and automatically lowers the power
09:00 Skwint hack it then :)
09:00 SolarNRG Any ideas where to start once I take the back off?
09:02 rue_house SolarNRG, for the same amount of energy I think you could make an induction smelter
09:03 SolarNRG Do you think I should give up with this and do the induction smelter with the 1000 watt filaments or should I carry on?
09:04 rue_house SolarNRG, usually putting metal in a microwave destroys the diode by the high voltage capacitor
09:04 rue_house induction smelters dont have filiments
09:04 SolarNRG Usually does not include two walls of calcium silicate!
09:05 rue_house induction smelters use megnetic coils to cause eddy currents in the target metal that melt it
09:05 SolarNRG Wow
09:06 SolarNRG Beer cans and all?
09:06 rue_house http://eds.dyndns.org/~ircjunk/projects/smelter/p1010997.jpg I use a diesel furnace blower
09:06 SolarNRG I'm sure it works rue, but I'm sticking to my guns on this one and I want a clean all electric method.
09:07 rue_house http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h151/BrentFinnigan/IMG_1159-qpr.jpg
09:07 SolarNRG That's the shit!
09:07 rue_house those cold coils of copper pipe are whats generating the heat
09:08 SolarNRG I have copper pipe
09:08 rue_house do you know how a transformer gets warm?
09:08 SolarNRG Resistance?
09:08 rue_house that cause of eddy currents
09:08 SolarNRG Back emf?
09:08 rue_house they make transformers out of layers of steel to reduce the eddy currents
09:09 rue_house if you take a bolt and wind a lot of large wire around it, then put AC power to it, the bolt will get really hot
09:09 SolarNRG So what do I do, put 240v ac straight across the coil?
09:09 rue_house na, 24 would do
09:09 rue_house http://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/319656400/medium_frequency_induction_heating_equipment_for_smelting.jpg
09:10 SolarNRG Can I put copper pipe in the airgap of my calcium silicate crucible?
09:10 rue_house probably
09:10 rue_house http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/672/480/230/1259198712343_hz_myalibaba_web6_1061.jpg
09:11 rue_house I think they also run water thru the pipe to make sure it dosn't pick up any heat
09:11 lt feels wire w
09:11 rue_house now you cant use the 50/60hz for smelting
09:11 rue_house they use a few Khz
09:12 rue_house http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/319656400/medium_frequency_induction_heating_equipment_for.html
09:12 SolarNRG Ahha
09:12 SolarNRG Tesla tech
09:12 SolarNRG High frequency AC
09:14 rue_house mmm 20Khz and under
09:14 rue_house http://www.penguinslab.com/induction.htm
09:18 rue_house http://www.richieburnett.co.uk/indheat.html thats an even better page
09:18 SolarNRG 100 Amps? That's more current than my house provides
09:19 rue_house when a transformer or inverter converts power, it does so under a constant power ratio
09:19 rue_house so the voltage goes down by 100x and the current goes up by 100x
09:20 rue_house so it may only take 2 or 3 amps in to get 100A out
09:20 rue_house your computer power supply puts out over 30A of 5V
09:20 SolarNRG :o
09:20 rue_house prolly more than 60A of 3.3V
09:21 SolarNRG So 100 amps at 24 v AC is 2400 watts
09:21 rue_house yes
09:21 SolarNRG That's 2.5x almost as powerful as the microwave
09:21 rue_house 10A at 240 vac is 2400 watts
09:22 rue_house 1A at 2400 vac is 2400 watts
09:22 SolarNRG This is a current driven system primarily
09:22 rue_house yes, but you need to freq for it to work
09:22 SolarNRG Does it become an antennae?
09:23 rue_house yea, it'll output a lot of electrical noise
09:23 rue_house listing to the AM radio while it works is definitly out
09:23 SolarNRG Basically this is the microwave idea, but using radiowaves instead and having the crucible in the middle of the magnetron
09:23 rue_house no
09:24 SolarNRG And the magnetron in this case has no solid iron core
09:24 rue_house the magnetron generates a radio freq in the order of a few Ghz that excites water
09:26 SolarNRG So really for metals we want kiloherz range
09:26 SolarNRG Can I turn my microwave into a radiowave?
09:26 rue_house http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&biw=928&bih=542&tbm=isch&q=induction+heater+circuit&revid=368465168&sa=X&ei=zFd8T7TDE-HQiAKZhZCYDw&ved=0CEcQgxY
09:26 rue_house schematics!
09:26 theBear common household microwaves work fine for smelting thigns like aluminium
09:27 rue_house theBear, pls prove it!
09:27 theBear rue_house, there's videos on youtube, they just tape up the fan hole to keep a little extra heat in there
09:27 theBear there's even commercial models designed for i dunno, lab use i guess
09:28 SolarNRG Thebear I refer to my experiment this afternoon and I hadn't melted them after 2 hours at 1000 watts, please watch-skip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tqpAdM7pZI
09:28 theBear holy crap, you come from the motherland
09:29 theBear did you read a bit before you tried ? many many people have been successful, i got a feeling they might add a little something or other to grab a little more of the microwaves
09:30 SolarNRG yep, I chucked some pencil leads in after 1hours 30 mins then gave it another 30 minutes on 1000 watts, all that happened was the cans went bronze coloured
09:30 rue_house http://danyk.wz.cz/induk3_en.html
09:30 SolarNRG skip to 13:00 on my video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tqpAdM7pZI
09:30 rue_house I think its made of computer power supply parts
09:30 theBear i can't see how graphite would help
09:30 SolarNRG IGBTs :D
09:30 SolarNRG Nice
09:31 SolarNRG I'm bookmarking that one
09:31 theBear ahh dodgy memory these days, the silicon carbide is the 'element'
09:32 SolarNRG Does that mean, looking at the suspiciously H-bridgy thing, that if I make ANY motor go back and forth at 20khz it'll overheat?
09:32 rue_house na
09:32 theBear not if you do it at a low enough voltage (and therefore power)
09:32 rue_house remember how I said transformers are made of laminated metal?
09:33 SolarNRG Yeah, I've taken one apart, there's like loads of squares of metal like a deck of cards
09:33 SolarNRG And the copper wire is woven through the layers
09:35 SolarNRG :(** I can't melt metal in a microwave
09:35 rue_house dont' mean you cant melt metal
09:35 rue_house SolarNRG, now, have you heard of an INVERTER microwave?
09:36 sw0rdfish hey guys.
09:36 rue_house guess what their operating freq is?
09:37 weebl somewhere between 1 and 999kHz?
09:37 rue_house 20Khz
09:37 rue_house or 35khz ish, but in that area
09:38 weebl fuuu, was gonna say 20, but I was betting on a safe card instead
09:38 SolarNRG ??
09:38 SolarNRG An inverted microwave, no
09:39 Skwint I think I've spent two days trying to solve a software bug caused by a faulty hardware switch :(
09:39 Skwint grrrr
09:39 rue_house Skwint, yup, did you have to tear the code right down to find that?
09:39 Skwint I hate working with physical objects whose largest measurement is smaller than the amount my finger shakes :p
09:39 rue_house SolarNRG, no, an INVERTER microwave
09:40 Skwint a fair bit - been swearing at all sorts of things
09:40 rue_house back in 9
09:43 weebl does anybody know a decent strategy for combining gps and compass heading to allow me to benefit from the accuracy of the gps and the update rate of the compass?
09:43 weebl I believe this is called sensor fusion
09:44 SolarNRG They are new
09:44 SolarNRG Well I suggest a nautical compass
09:44 SolarNRG I used one on my kayaking venture
09:44 weebl I am talking of an electronic one (tilt compensated)
09:44 SolarNRG And have a grey code dial on the bottom of it
09:44 SolarNRG So you know your heading :D
09:45 weebl and to implement that on a robotic vehicle I'd need to learn how to do image recognition :P
09:46 weebl and somehow run it on an arduino
09:46 Skwint I think I've shorted something :/
09:47 weebl blue smoke?
09:47 SolarNRG You might get away with a rotory encoder but the magnetic field of the earth won't be strong enough to pull the compass
09:47 Skwint no, it just flickers lights that should be constant, and responds only occasionally to instructions
09:47 SolarNRG They might do digital compass modules
09:48 Skwint *sigh*
09:48 Skwint they definitely do digital compass modules
09:48 Skwint not sure why a strategy is required though
09:50 weebl compass data fluctuates and is fairly unreliable as vibrations mess up the calculated heading as I am using tilt compensation
09:50 weebl gps data is accurate but I only get the data once every second
09:51 SolarNRG gps data is NOT very accurate unless you have the encrypted p-code that only the US military possess. It's always out by a few meters for a VERY good reason
09:52 weebl the calculated heading is fairly accurate, the compass data bounces around at like +-�20 degrees
09:52 weebl well within that area
09:52 SolarNRG I advise you to keep the compass module as far away from motors as possible as any strong magnetic field may give you spurious results!
09:52 theBear you know they took the random gps error out many years ago right ?
09:53 SolarNRG I don't believe it
09:53 SolarNRG The GPS says we're in the garden when we're really in the bedroom
09:54 SolarNRG There are alternatives to GPS
09:54 SolarNRG There is Glonass
09:54 theBear 'cos it works on multiple sources and fine timing and the standard candidly admits it needs more or less line of sight
09:54 SolarNRG And ther is Magellan
09:54 weebl SolarNRG: its placed on a mast like half a meter above my robot, its more or less not affected by me changing the throttle on the motor etc
09:54 SolarNRG OH that's fine then weebl
09:55 weebl if you get a signal from a land-based gps transmitter you get pretty accurate locations
09:55 SolarNRG We used to have DECKER, that was sooo much more accurate than the GPS albeit shorter ranged
09:55 SolarNRG We would lose contact with it by the time we arrived in alderney
09:56 weebl I know its used a lot around the coast back home in Norway as the coast is scattered with rocks and islands etc
09:56 weebl I remember how it was out there before we got land-based gps stations
09:57 weebl according to the gps in our boat it was an amphibious vehicle
09:59 weebl nowadays its impressively accurate
09:59 SolarNRG I bet the military still have GPS accurate to like 1mm but we're not allowe to use that
10:01 weebl 1mm might be a bit overkill, but within less than half a meter is likely
10:02 moriarty i agree with weebl
10:03 moriarty the accuracy for military GPS is typically within 3-5 m
10:03 moriarty due to the usage of dual frequency as opposed to civilian usage which has only one and comes to about 8 m accuracy
10:03 moriarty within a 95% c.f. level
10:04 SolarNRG Moriarty, have you ever used military GPS? I think they say 3-5meters so the enemy doesn't think their satnet is as good as it really is.
10:04 SolarNRG I've not used it
10:05 SolarNRG But I bet its way more accurate than whatever we've got so we can't use civilian gps to guide missiles at the white house
10:06 joink I've played around with robots using some fancy ass GPS-system that was accurate to around 50-70cm
10:06 SolarNRG joink Lo
10:06 SolarNRG :o
10:06 joink well, a robot :P
10:06 joink expensive as heck :P
10:07 SolarNRG I bet
10:07 moriarty joink, that's augmented GPS that uses terrestial-based navigation systems
10:07 joink moriarty: perhaps, it had like a half-dome GPS thing
10:07 moriarty SolarNRG, well basically the military can lie either way
10:07 sw0rdfish anyone here studied robotics at school? or you all only hobbyists?
10:07 moriarty typically the military has more reason to augment its capabilities verbally than diminish
10:07 SolarNRG I studied cybernetics at Uni for 3 years
10:07 moriarty contrary to popular belief
10:08 furrywolf I'm looking for books, papers, or other references on hydraulic pump design, for a robotics application. Any suggestions? I need information on actually designing a pump (clearences of rotating surfaces that ride on a fluid film, etc), not how to select and install a commercial unit, nor hydraulic system design in general...
10:08 SolarNRG Moriarty, explain why the RAF keep detecting a mach 40 aircraft flying out of the USAAF base in Scotland then?
10:08 SolarNRG beep beep, GONE
10:08 SolarNRG They've got stuff they don't tell you about for sure
10:09 SolarNRG furrywolf, if you can afford it I recommend FLOW3D software, I couldn't hack it though. AMAZING For fluodynamics
10:10 moriarty SolarNRG, firstly there are no aircrafts flying at Mach 40
10:11 furrywolf can't afford it, and actually modeling it would take learning even more I suspect... and might not be too useful for what I'm trying to build.
10:11 furrywolf sure there are. they just haven't told you about them. :P
10:11 furrywolf *hides*
10:11 SolarNRG Furrywolf, I totally agree
10:11 moriarty lol furrywolf
10:11 SolarNRG There are aircraft not in any Jane's book of aircraft
10:12 SolarNRG There are classified military payloads 22 tonnes or greater going into orbit
10:12 moriarty it is in the military's best interests to actually advertise their capabilities rather than hide it
10:12 SolarNRG The US military spends a trillion each year on what exactly?
10:12 moriarty you need to read the news more, yeah, about military exercises and their purpose
10:12 moriarty just like you do not hide advertisements of your house burglar alarm
10:12 furrywolf the military has a long history of not mentioning anything they invent for 10-50+ years after they did it.
10:12 SolarNRG The military don't tell you the truth about Iraq or Afghan, they murdered all the journalists to stop the truth getting out
10:12 moriarty effective deterrence is better than actually engaging in combat
10:12 SolarNRG Yep
10:12 furrywolf usually the public finds out about it on the first day it's used, if then.
10:13 furrywolf that is, used in actual war, not training or research.
10:13 weebl sw0rdfish: I am currently studying AI and robotics
10:13 moriarty or as the saying goes prophylaxis is better than actually treating
10:13 SolarNRG Weebl, what are your thoughts on neural networks?
10:13 sw0rdfish well thats nice weebl :D
10:13 moriarty weebl, which university? :)
10:14 SolarNRG How about Bin Laden's compound eh? A stealth helicopter crash, that helicopter nobody knew anything about until May 2
10:14 weebl SolarNRG: its an interresting concept, but I can't really say I have much interrest for the AI related stuff anymore.
10:14 moriarty the lack of truth about Iraq or Afghan isn't about their military capabilities so much as it is about divertion from true political will
10:14 moriarty there is a distinction to be made there
10:14 furrywolf I'm not having any luck finding good information on designing hydraulic pumps... and it'd be a ridiculous waste of effort to re-figure everyone that's been done in the last 200 years...
10:14 weebl moriarty: Aberystwyth University, In Wales,UK
10:14 moriarty weebl, nice :-) i have some mates who graduated from there, good uni
10:14 moriarty they did AI-esque stuff too
10:14 weebl furrywolf: why are you building one from scratch?
10:15 SolarNRG furry, here's a cheap option, ring up a scrap yard and buy a broken one, take it to bits wearing gloves (nasty hydraulic fluid) and photo every part as you take it to bits. You'll figure it all out sooner or later
10:15 sw0rdfish weebl, why not anymore interest in it?
10:15 SolarNRG Reverse engineering :)
10:16 furrywolf weebl: I need one designed to run at 30-120 rpm, much lower than commercial units, and variable displacement, where the displacement is varried to maintain a constant (but adjustable) input torque, something no commercial unit does.
10:16 furrywolf most pumps use rotating plates riding on a fluid film for the valves, which doesn't work at low rpms.
10:16 weebl sw0rdfish: mostly just a change of interrests really, and I have currently kindof lost all will to do AI related stuff due to horrible lecturing
10:16 moriarty the helicopter used in the bin Laden raid was a modified existing design UH-60 of a helicopter with silver paint and extra blades to make it quieter, that's all
10:16 furrywolf and are either hugely inefficient (I need 97% or so) or chew themselves up.
10:17 moriarty there is nothing revolutionary about it
10:17 sw0rdfish lol weebl .... dang the lecturing was that bad, it changed your mind. :O
10:17 furrywolf how about that spy drone we only know about because one crashed and they took pictures of it?
10:17 SolarNRG Another good example furry, just like that mythical plane out of the crap film "stealth"
10:18 SolarNRG A robot B2
10:18 SolarNRG And it didn't crash, Iran shot that thing out of the sky with a hundred missiles
10:18 weebl sw0rdfish: literally all the people here that do research within AI nowadays are east-asians, and they might write english well and talk pretty well on a two man basis
10:18 weebl but for gods sake keep them out of lecture theatres
10:18 weebl unless its english lessons
10:18 furrywolf there are more pictures of said drone released by whichever country it crashed in than the zero our own government has admitted to, or even its existance.
10:19 SolarNRG Pakistan and Iran showed 2 new unmentioned aircraft
10:19 moriarty in terms of GPS accuracy, that don't matter at all when you're talking about blast radius that exceeds the inaccuracy levels on all cases
10:19 moriarty seriously, what kind of missile ordnance do you have that blasts at millimetre levels
10:19 moriarty lol
10:19 moriarty goodness
10:20 weebl I have never been a big theoretical mind anyways, I like more hands-on practical work and work where I can see the results of my computations in the real world.
10:20 SolarNRG And I know people who work at the RAF base, I don't doubt what they say when they say beep one side of the screen, beep the other side of the radar screen, gone. Covering 60 miles in 2 seconds
10:20 SolarNRG What, is that just a metorite that always flys out of the American base at night?
10:20 moriarty if you have some shitty bomb that blasts at half-metre radius, then your payload is of magnitudes cheaper than your guidance system, in which case you have serious economic dysfunctional decisions made there
10:20 weebl desktop apps etc are just lines and text, might be cool stuff behind it but the result is boring IMO.
10:20 moriarty lol
10:21 sw0rdfish well I'm not sure weather to directly go for nano tech and robotics bachelors degree or first study 2-3 years for a diploma in " Electro-Mechanical Engineering Technology - Automation & Robotics" THEN go for the bachelors degree program.... and damn man time has already passed on me cuz of personal sheet, I'm suppose to be in 3rd year now...
10:21 sw0rdfish weebl, ^^
10:21 moriarty sw0rdfish, what are you in currently?
10:21 furrywolf eh, I suspect we either have or are designing such a thing, for assissination purposes.
10:21 sw0rdfish but yeah I also think
10:21 sw0rdfish that Electro-Mechanical Engineering Technology - Automation & Robotics will give me much
10:21 sw0rdfish experience
10:21 moriarty sw0rdfish, best to go for a general degree first, then specialise later
10:21 furrywolf if the target is very, very valuable, the weapon cost is worth it.
10:21 sw0rdfish great experience that'll help in nano tech & robotics..... moriarty I'm gonna study in Canada :)
10:21 moriarty nanotechnology is typically more within the domain of physics, although CS departments try to break into it sometimes
10:22 SolarNRG The 20 million dollar fly by wire poison dart was first used well over a decade ago to assassinate a CIA asset turned drug lord in Colombia
10:22 moriarty as for robotics, it's a direct offspring of mechatronics, typically a branch of mech eng so...
10:22 moriarty although again, CS departments try to broach it too
10:22 sw0rdfish moriarty, well it can be included in CS in terms of building chips from the ground up... starting from the smallest particles possible :D
10:22 moriarty but frankly i feel you're better off with a mech eng degree for robotics
10:22 SolarNRG moriarty, I agree about the mech eng
10:23 sw0rdfish the first guy to propose this idea is the head of nano tech research in one of the first universities to have such a research department Rice Univ. in Texas
10:23 weebl sw0rdfish: look at courses in cybernetics, thats mostly targeted towards making robots and stuff like that
10:23 weebl or computers that interract with the world
10:23 moriarty sw0rdfish, well sure, but you don't need to know algorithms to do nanotechnology, but you do need a solid understanding of physics at the quantum level typically
10:23 furrywolf I got a degree. I wouldn't advise anyone else follow that path. Learn what you need on your own.
10:23 moriarty or nanoscience as some departments call it by more
10:23 weebl physics is just applied maths
10:23 furrywolf I got a shiny degree, and now I drive crap around for a living.
10:24 weebl I'm graduating this summer
10:24 moriarty almost everything is applied math, applied to what hazy level, that's key
10:24 SolarNRG Nanoscience is a boring job of baking a million chicken feathers to make a tiny sheet of buckypaper and go wooo, look at this super strong lightweight flake of paper that gives you finger cancer
10:24 moriarty even psychology is applied math
10:24 moriarty just at a very distant level
10:24 moriarty lol
10:24 moriarty haha SolarNRG
10:24 sw0rdfish lol
10:24 weebl my plan for the next summer and potentially next year is to drive a forklift
10:25 weebl unless I get in to my dream masters course I'll work for a year and figure out what to do with life
10:25 SolarNRG weebl, forklift makes a lot of money, especially if you drive off with the cashpoint with it when its just been filled up
10:25 furrywolf any suggestions on where I might find suggestions on hydraulic pump design references? :)
10:25 moriarty if you want to do fun stuff with AI, i'd suggest neuroscience as a degree :-)
10:25 SolarNRG www.jcb.com
10:25 moriarty it's probably a better approach to the whole intelligence issue
10:26 moriarty the CS aspect is pretty ad-hoc
10:26 weebl I wanna do mechanics, web design/development, Human computer interractions, cybernetics, electronics and satellite technology
10:26 moriarty haha
10:26 moriarty how many degrees do you want to do all at once? :P
10:27 weebl I cant decide
10:27 SolarNRG The more degrees you do, the more in debt you become
10:27 moriarty true
10:27 weebl I just dont wanna be grown up and having to go to the office
10:27 moriarty then go into research :D
10:27 moriarty you'd be in university forever
10:27 weebl SolarNRG: this is true, I am norwegian though so degrees there are free, all you need to fund is your own living expense
10:27 sw0rdfish moriarty, nice suggestion about neuroscience :)
10:28 weebl though that is usually funded by a student loan
10:28 sw0rdfish I also plan to take it as a minor while taking nanoscience
10:28 moriarty hehe sw0rdfish
10:28 sw0rdfish but wait there degrees specifically on AI?
10:28 SolarNRG I'm a total failure
10:28 moriarty sw0rdfish, lol you'd blow your brains out like that
10:28 sw0rdfish weebl, whats your major called again?
10:28 moriarty yeah there are
10:28 moriarty machine learning is a typical masters for AI
10:28 moriarty i think only CMU offers it as an undergraduate course
10:29 weebl sw0rdfish: I'm doing Artificial intelligene and robotics
10:29 weebl thats the whole thing
10:29 moriarty if you want to do robots, Japan probably is the ideal place to be
10:29 weebl we dont normally do the major/minor thing in europe
10:29 moriarty they have the highest concentration of robots among all the nations on the planet
10:29 moriarty per capita
10:29 weebl moriarty: if you wanna study in japan you have to do a introduction course to japanese
10:29 SolarNRG You might be better off getting a CNC programmer 6 month course and get a 25k a year job, make your own parts on the sly when your boss isn't looking
10:30 moriarty weebl, yeah a mate did that :-) through a healthy dose of animes and summer intensives
10:30 weebl I would never even consider living down there
10:30 sw0rdfish lol
10:30 moriarty he did that during his U/G, then some during PhD before doing a postdoc in Japan
10:30 weebl I loose all sense of where I am unless I can see a mountain or the sea
10:30 moriarty haha i think you see sea in most parts of Japan
10:30 moriarty it's basically an island nation :P
10:30 sw0rdfish weebl, I thought student loans are only loans for living expenses not the school? its free isn't it? in .no?
10:31 weebl it is in norway
10:31 weebl I'm doing my degree in the UK though
10:31 weebl so I get a loan for my tuition down here through the norwegian student loan fund
10:31 sw0rdfish i know and I'm saying school is free
10:31 sw0rdfish the student loan is for living expenses so the student doesn't need to worry about jobs and shit and study
10:31 SolarNRG I got a degree in biomedical engineering with cybernetics, the only job I could get when I came out was stacking shelvess
10:31 moriarty weebl, where do you wanna work after graduating?
10:31 sw0rdfish right?
10:31 moriarty lol SolarNRG
10:31 sw0rdfish oh I'm talking about students who study in .no, weebl
10:32 moriarty see that's what happens when you get too specialised early on
10:32 SolarNRG Now I can't even get that, too many applicants
10:32 sw0rdfish weebl, you're talking about lanneklassen.no or something right?
10:32 moriarty i think SolarNRG's degree would serve him well in pretty much only two places on Earth, Japan and NASA
10:32 weebl moriarty: I think the mad scientist approach suits me best
10:32 weebl sw0rdfish: yeah
10:32 SolarNRG NASAs been shut down, Japans a radioactive wasteland
10:32 moriarty yeah if Obama doesn't win reelections, NASA would spring back up
10:33 weebl there is a german company named festo that does some really sick stuff
10:33 SolarNRG Bush may have been a knob, but he did give NASA a lot of money
10:34 weebl politicians dont understand that investing in space exploration results in earning money in almost all cases
10:34 weebl they dont get money straight out, but the technology that comes out of it is incredibly useful
10:34 SolarNRG Barrack Obama isn't who he says he is
10:35 weebl he's a white conservative man from texas, dressed up as will smith
10:35 weebl without space exploration we wouldn't have MRI
10:35 SolarNRG Very true weebl
10:35 SolarNRG Nor would we have the Internet
10:36 SolarNRG My gf's best friend's mum worked for NASA during apollo, they gave her enough money to invent the first IC op amp!
10:36 weebl well, the internet was based on earlier military networks for information exchange
10:36 SolarNRG She had to fix them!
10:36 SolarNRG She was allowed into these "bat caves" where the rock would come down, they would drive into a tunnel and there would be a mexican cleaner disconnecting the "computer"s power supply to use teh hoover
10:37 weebl the technological advancements has stagnated since the end of the cold war
10:37 SolarNRG She insisted on having hte computer cable GLUED into the socket to prevent this
10:37 weebl haha
10:38 SolarNRG She would then be dropped off in the middle of the desert and someone would materialise in another car to take her back to the hotel
10:38 SolarNRG She had to sign 3 bits of paper to enter the main control room of NASA during apollo 13 to discuss how to fix the situation
10:39 SolarNRG She was one of many women who helped build those early computers that made Earth-Moon travel possible
10:39 weebl SHE MIGHT BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN KALMAN FILTERS TO ME!!!
10:39 SolarNRG She passed away 3 weeks ago and we went to her funeral. She had us over for dinner at Xmas
10:39 weebl doh....
10:40 SolarNRG Dolina Caulfield was her name
10:40 weebl everybody at my department recommends me to use kalman filters, nobody can explain them to me
10:40 weebl all they do is warn me that its a clusterfuck of mathematics
10:41 SolarNRG weebl, in my day they were all demanding I do neural networks
10:41 moriarty why NNs?
10:41 SolarNRG Because they could LEARN
10:41 moriarty as opposed to?
10:41 weebl I love fuzzy logic
10:41 weebl its nice and vague
10:42 SolarNRG We had a chinese girl try to teach us fuzzy logic, didn't understand a word of what she said tho
10:42 weebl its like: That object could be an apple, but it might as well be a car. I dont care
10:43 moriarty lol weebl
10:43 sw0rdfish hey, that "Electro-Mechanical Engineering Technology - Automation & Robotics" diploma program at centennial and other colleges offers courses in stuff like "Hydraulic Systems" and "Pneumatic Components" .... so like will that give me good experience that would help in robotics/AI/nanoscience bachelor?
10:44 SolarNRG Apply to work in a hyraulics factory in China for a sebatical year
10:44 weebl at least within robotics
10:44 weebl AI is mostly just theoretical stuff and programming
10:44 weebl nanoscience is just making chips and stuff
10:44 weebl afaik
10:45 jadew nanobots!
10:45 weebl Fuck that shit, in every sci-fi universe that means trouble
10:45 jadew haha
10:46 sw0rdfish lol
10:46 jadew are you afraid of replicators?
10:46 weebl if you could make robots small enough to make them make cells they could in theory by some incredibly unlikely coincidence end up making actual cells and then further on eumebae
10:46 weebl etc
10:47 weebl not really, true AI is and will remain scifi for as long as I live
10:48 weebl my unhealthy lifestyle and the fact that the robot I am making for my dissertation probably has a longer life-expectancy than me with the lever of clumsiness I am acheiving makes that more likely
10:48 jadew I wouldn't put my money on that
10:48 weebl *level
10:48 theBear hmm.... anyone know what kinda magnification you need to see say, basic plant cell structure with a microscope ? 300-500 is o.k ? or more like 1000 ? i THINK the one i had as a kid was 10/100/1000 and that was pretty 'amazing' on high mag
10:48 jadew look into the blue brain project
10:48 jadew they already have a working brain, well part of it
10:48 jadew studying that will sure advance the AI field a lot
10:49 weebl just having all the neurons hooked up isnt enough though
10:49 jadew it's enough to study them at a bigger scale
10:49 weebl we cant really explain self conciousness yet
10:49 weebl replicating behaviours is fairly simple
10:50 weebl creating a conciousness is a totally different level
10:50 jadew that's the thing, they're not trying to create it at first
10:50 jadew they want to replicate it
10:50 sw0rdfish hmmmmmm
10:51 jadew so they can then study it and then... create new AI based on that
10:51 Triffid_Hunter weebl: I read about kalman filters, which bit confuses you?
10:52 theBear i can appreciate how self-consciousness develops/works, it's just such a damned huge scale of basic building blocks and so 'un-math-like' that trying to replicate it in native form with say, a pc is beyond mindbending
10:53 theBear interesting over the years both being 'disturbed' in various ways, and learning thru various methods how that kinda disorder works... teaches a LOT about how things work on a mid-level inside the 'brain'
10:54 theBear things like psychotic breaks mostly in people i know, and very rarely (for example recently due to benzo withdrawl) in myself, are VERY telling as to how a few underlying things work
10:54 jadew IMO, trying to imitate animal consciousness is the wrong way to go about it
10:54 jadew it's like flying all over again
10:54 Triffid_Hunter that's why optical illusions interest me, they give insight into how our visual system processes information
10:55 sw0rdfish rawr
10:56 jadew I'm confident true consciousness can be achived trough simple programming
10:56 weebl Triffid_Hunter: I am trying to find some method of implementing one for sensor fusion using the heading from a GPS unit and compass
10:56 jadew the hardest part is kickstaring this engine that would be capable of thinking
10:57 theBear a lot of it is 'standard' psychological/brain science stuff, like different areas handling different 'facets' of the human experience... that new show with steven fry looking into language related things is very interesting... among other things he/bbc/whoever have enough money to try 'experiments' with expensive brainscanners and doctors to translate results in real time/ shortly after
10:57 weebl Conciousness = new.conciousness;
10:57 weebl ^that is true AI in java
10:58 jadew I think you'll get a syntax error there
10:58 weebl actually, Conciousness() = new.conciousness();
10:58 jadew and again
10:58 weebl the syntax error is the beauty of it
10:58 theBear Triffid_Hunter, hmm... bit busy with cooking and a visitor, but not sure if it's common knowledge.... i'm medium-large colourblind in red/green, moreso in one eye than the other... some things, like for example red on black 'chess board' 'confuse' my mind/eyes and i see strobing and various other strange effects...
10:59 jadew theBear, that's because you don't trully see in the detail you experience
10:59 jadew your brain fills in with a lot of missing info
10:59 weebl I think its interresting how dylsexic people can in some cases read better on blue paper
10:59 jadew that's exactly what's happening with visual illussions
11:00 theBear jadew, indeed, and the darnedest feeling, i suppose a lot like many visual illusions, when the eyes/brain are just teetering on the edge of not understanding/trying to understand...
11:00 Skwint I get the strobing effect
11:00 Skwint if I look at an "spot the difference" pair and cross my eyes to make them line up
11:00 theBear much like with psychological disorders (i have noticed) the more you experience them, the more you become aware of the subtle effects
11:00 Triffid_Hunter weebl: hm that should be relatively easy, chuck em both in with guessed standard deviations, see what it does
11:01 jadew afk
11:01 theBear i've always been TERRIBLE at those jumble-of-dots/repeated images (like in that mallrats or similar movie "it's a sailboat") ... only ever seen a handful, and i'm better than most at wiggling one eye... it's always been a bit lazy, used to give me horrible headaches for a few years as a kid
11:01 weebl gotta see if I find an arduino or c++ implementation of one then, or potentially pseudocode
11:02 theBear went to a 'revolutionary' at the time optometrist for a long time, he basically gave me muscle-exercises for my eyes that got me over the problems... things like forced-fast-extreme-focusing (for example, get a LONG string, or just pick 3 points, then focus between maybe 10cm, 2m, 10m and back again)
11:02 weebl I am terrible at implementing code from equations
11:02 Skwint easiest code of the lot to write, when you have an equation
11:03 Triffid_Hunter weebl: I presume you've wandered around logging the data from them both for replay through your test filters?
11:04 weebl Triffid_Hunter: yeh
11:05 SolarNRG OK, going back to microwaving aluminium, what should I do differently? I want to try once more before giving up and trying the induction method
11:05 SolarNRG Tape up the air holes
11:05 SolarNRG More graphite?
11:05 SolarNRG Graphite as close to the magnetron as poss?
11:06 weebl SolarNRG: just make thermite
11:08 Triffid_Hunter weebl: http://kalman.sourceforge.net/doc/example.html sounds useful
11:08 jadew SolarNRG, try with a single can
11:08 Triffid_Hunter SolarNRG: don't worry about distance from magnetron, the waves bounce around in the microwave
11:09 weebl magnetron is a pretty bad-ass word
11:09 Triffid_Hunter SolarNRG: ooh actually I do have an idea, and it involves cheese sandwiches. put several in your microwave, note where the cheese melts. put your crucible there
11:09 Triffid_Hunter those are the hot-spots where the standing wave's peaks sit :)
11:10 SolarNRG Nice idea!
11:12 sw0rdfish lolwtf
11:13 weebl Triffid_Hunter: THATS GENIOUS!
11:14 weebl its like combining science and food
11:15 Triffid_Hunter :D
11:15 Triffid_Hunter weebl: science and food should always be combined.. molecular gastronomy is a fascinating topic!
11:15 weebl if you could somehow combine that with a free blowjob you could win a nobels price
11:15 sw0rdfish lmfao
11:20 weebl Triffid_Hunter: I think I found the solution :D filteringscheme.h, arduino library
11:20 EbiDK Re: Microwave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJipa07DoHs
11:21 weebl my dissertation supervisor is the kind off "DONT FUCKING REINVENT THE WHEEL!!!!!" kind of person
11:21 weebl he laughed at me for writing my own GPS string parser
11:21 weebl then he showed me a library that does all the gps stuff I needed
11:22 weebl 3 lines of code instead of a nights headache around strings and c/c++
11:23 weebl my supervisor is a sound guy :D
11:23 Triffid_Hunter weebl: yeah cool, don't reinvent the wheel unless everyone else has been busily making octagonal wheels
11:24 rizlah Anyone here know much about keyboard switch types?
11:24 rizlah getting a proper KB and need to know whether to get brown or blue switches
11:24 EbiDK It'd be a lot easier to not reinvent the wheel with Arudino stuff if there was a nice list somewhere to find all the goodies on. Like say the almost never updated 3rd party library list.'
11:25 rizlah from what I know, blue is better for typing
11:25 Triffid_Hunter rizlah: I know some are better than others, but haven't done any reading on which those might be
11:25 weebl EbiDK: open source in a nutshell, obsolete code and no *really* good directories to look up in to find stuff
11:26 weebl I like it, but its also annoying
11:26 EbiDK Indeed
11:26 rizlah I like to reinvent the wheel.
11:26 rizlah Because I know I can do it better if I put my mind to it
11:26 EbiDK It'd be a lot easier if Arduino code was C++ instead of almost C++
11:26 rizlah Most people don't care about their code, they don't care about design.
11:26 rizlah I am very strict with code quality/clarity and design
11:26 EbiDK Could use a lot more libraries then
11:27 weebl EbiDK: this is true, its a bastardized version of c++
11:27 weebl very bastardized
11:27 rizlah You do realise you can run standard C++ on the arduino, right?
11:28 weebl to a certain extent yeah
11:28 rizlah No, fully.
11:29 Triffid_Hunter of course, it uses avr-g++ in the back-end after all
11:29 Triffid_Hunter wouldn't want to use too many of C++s more esoteric features on a chip with only 2k ram though!
11:29 EbiDK rizlah: Yeah, my problem is the project I've been working on lately had to work with the official tools which means bastardized C++
11:30 weebl standard type printouts like cout doesn't work in arduino AFAIK
11:30 rizlah I wouldn't want to use C++ at all, let alone something embedded.
11:30 rizlah C for embedded stuff, higher level for applications.
11:30 weebl yeah
11:31 EbiDK You can get them if you want. Someone turned libuC++ or whatever it's called into an Arduino library. It's just a bit memory hungry.
11:31 rizlah weebl: iirc cout isn't defined in the freestanding section of the C++ standard
11:31 Triffid_Hunter weebl: I'm sure cout could be made to work, just need to hook appropriate innards to the serial port or LCD or something
11:31 weebl well, I quite like how you implement sensors and serial units as objects though
11:31 EbiDK And they are putting more and more stream stuff into standard Arduino lately
11:31 rizlah They are doing what all idiots do when they start coding. They completely mess it up.
11:32 rizlah Arduino libraries used to be OK because it had enough features to do required things. Now all the mainstream retards join in mess up the design, bloat the libraries with crap/etc
11:33 weebl rizlah: its actually a great way to learn embedded programming stuff
11:33 rizlah What, to bloat a 'standard library' to the point where the device can barely run it?
11:33 weebl well not that part
11:34 EbiDK I'd be happy if they allowed libraries to be included from the sketch folder, generated proper prototypes in all cases, and gave me static SRAM allocation info when I compile.
11:34 weebl EbiDK: you can write standard AVR c on the arduino
11:35 rizlah I'd be happy if the little kids currently messing around with arduinos put them down and went back to koding kool kodez in java
11:35 EbiDK Yes, but not in the project I've been working on lately. Had to be the standard tools.
11:35 weebl dont worry, in a couple of months they will move on to raspberry PI
11:35 EbiDK Mmmmm Pi
11:36 EbiDK Wish that'd been out earlier so I could have used that instead. Would have saved me a lot of headaches.
11:36 weebl I'd like to have one of those too
11:36 EbiDK I'm thinking quadcoptor :)
11:37 rizlah I doubt I'm getting a Pi
11:37 rizlah Probably a beagleboard or something
11:37 weebl you wouldnt need a full grown computer like the RPI to make a quadcopter
11:37 rizlah Isn't Pi full of binary blobs/etc to keep out those evil heckers n whatnot
11:37 rizlah EbiDK: Why quadcopter?
11:37 EbiDK No but it'd be easy to do and cost about the same as an Arduino and I'd be able to run Python and other nice languages on it
11:38 EbiDK rizlah: Because it'd be fun to build one
11:38 rizlah I want to make a jet aircraft, but engines cost ~1k
11:38 weebl you can just write standard C on an arduino too, skip all the arduino based code
11:38 weebl I like C
11:38 weebl python makes no sense
11:38 weebl I need brackets
11:39 EbiDK Python is nicer than C though. Unless of couse you need to juggle bits
11:39 Triffid_Hunter weebl: I write plain C for atmegas and just use the arduino hardware
11:39 rizlah weebl: If I get an arduino I'd rewrite the whole library for two reasons: 1, I'd want to learn how the whole thing works, 2, I would actually make something of reasonable design
11:39 Triffid_Hunter weebl: see teacup firmware for reprap for an example including a bunch of libraries you can nick if you like
11:39 EbiDK weebl: Try scheme :P Sure it's parenthesis, but they're almost like brackets and there are lots and lots of them :P
11:39 Triffid_Hunter rizlah: ^^ you may be interested in that too
11:39 rizlah I use C for low level, perl/python for applications
11:40 sw0rdfish oh really weebl, you can write plain, standard C on an arduino
11:40 EbiDK rizlah: Heh, try taking a look at the Arduino IDE code sometime, it's a mess.
11:40 weebl Triffid_Hunter: is it stuff you've done?
11:40 sw0rdfish I thought you couldn't so I was gonna get a launchpad instead
11:40 sw0rdfish but I still will considering the price difference
11:41 Triffid_Hunter weebl: I created teacup and wrote quite a lot of the code but I've since handed it over to traumflug for further development
11:41 rizlah Thinking of getting http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_details.asp?PRODUCT=808 , anyone have reasons not to?
11:42 rizlah sw0rdfish: launchpads are crap iirc
11:42 weebl Triffid_Hunter: neat!
11:42 rizlah someone did a review on them a while back explaining why
11:42 weebl some first and second years at my uni is trying to make a reprap
11:43 weebl they have managed to print a blob
11:43 weebl took them 6 months
11:43 weebl they have somehow fried like 5 steppermotors
11:44 Triffid_Hunter weebl: sounds like they got a techzone or botmill kit
11:44 weebl they have bought stuff from all over the place
11:44 sw0rdfish what is the better alternative then? arduino?
11:44 weebl depends what you wanna use it for :P
11:45 rizlah sw0rdfish: Yeah, or RYO
11:45 weebl what you need
11:45 weebl etc
11:45 sw0rdfish line-following-robot
11:45 weebl you dont really need a uC for that :P
11:46 weebl depending on what sensor you use ofc
11:46 rizlah Why do you want a line following robot?
11:47 weebl use lego minstorms:D
11:47 sw0rdfish to learn robotics, it'll be my first
11:47 Triffid_Hunter doesn't mindstorms use some ancient chip like the 68hc11?
11:47 sw0rdfish rizlah, weebl ^^
11:47 rizlah Why not make a hexapod?
11:47 rizlah line followers are useless
11:48 rizlah you could put a hexapod in a tank with a scorpion and see who wins
11:48 weebl I'd make some generic wheeled/tracked vehicle and then start messing about with that
11:49 weebl start with controlling it with an android phone, wiimote, mouse etc
11:50 sw0rdfish mouse?
11:50 theBear while i'm at it (err, asking random optical questions far far apart from one another,) anyone know what a 'fisheye' lens looks like, or even just a horizontal-fisheye ? kinda like an err, aspherical lens i'm guessing ?
11:51 weebl sw0rdfish: through your computer
11:51 weebl move the mouse forward, go forward etc
11:51 sw0rdfish will note those down rizlah, weebl.... any other suggestions? (are those costy?)
11:51 theBear even better, anyone know a cheap/easy way to arrange it for a little video cam ? hmm... curved mirror (cheap flexy one) would do it on one axis ...
11:51 sw0rdfish yep I got that weebl :P :D
11:51 theBear i wonder if i got anything like that
11:52 theBear oooh, or that big random stepper i got put aside might do the job i need
11:52 weebl sw0rdfish: you pretty much just need some platform, cheapo RC car should do
11:52 weebl motor controller
11:52 weebl arduino or something
11:52 weebl some way of doing radio comms
11:52 weebl and some bits
11:53 rizlah theBear: You mean the lens that "skaters" use, where the center is somewhat sharp and the rest is curved?
11:54 rizlah http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXjgH7_jxEE
11:54 rizlah This
11:54 weebl I'd say that would be doable for far less than 100 usd
11:54 Triffid_Hunter theBear: fisheye as far as I know is a lens that gives extremely wide field of view
11:54 theBear rizlah, that's a classic fisheye (as seen in front-door 'peepholes') but i'm thinking more just a horizontal one so a given cam in my living room can see a little 'wider' angle, basically compressing and widening the horizontal f.o.v. , like a curved mirror would do... fisheye is the same thing on 2 axis but with a 'soft' spot in the middle
11:54 Triffid_Hunter no idea how to arrange it
11:55 sw0rdfish weebl, is it cheaper to get arduino stuff from the local robonor.no or from else where?
11:55 weebl sw0rdfish: I guess you're in norway?
11:55 sw0rdfish yeah
11:55 rizlah theBear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8EKmFx0918
11:55 theBear pretty sure the idea, regardless of axis's (assuming fisheye, not just a stretch like i suppose i want now i think about it), is that from center to outside the angle widens, which err, would mean thick with an unnatural possibly curve-reversing angle towards the edges (with a classic round lens)
11:56 sw0rdfish omg man it'd be great if I can make my first robotics project for less than 400kr
11:56 sw0rdfish weebl, ^^
11:56 sw0rdfish http://www.robonor.no/mage/default/arduino.html
11:56 weebl robonor is a bit more expensive, but I'd say you could get it done for 500nok
11:56 sw0rdfish are you sure you'd recommend NOT to get launchpad? lool its $4.30 price is soooooo tempting
11:56 rizlah sw0rdfish: It is crap
11:56 theBear rizlah, yeah, that's a REAL gentle one, looks a lot like the 'car reverse camera' i use for the back door.... i'm thinking for this specific application tho, i should just find a bendable 'mirror' and use that
11:56 furrywolf I've heard lots of good things about launchpads, and someone in ##electronics uses them for everything...
11:57 furrywolf arduino, however, should fucking die.
11:57 sw0rdfish weebl yeah but if I exceed around$50-$100 buying from abroad I will be charged 25% tax
11:57 sw0rdfish I don't remember the customs laws
11:57 sw0rdfish was it over $50?
11:57 weebl 200nok
11:57 rizlah What is nok?
11:57 weebl norwegian kroner
11:57 weebl norwegian currency
11:57 sw0rdfish lol yep
11:57 rizlah Ah
11:57 theBear i suppose without severe vertical angle (in order to 'miss' the camera itself), i need to/can offset it in front of the cam on an angle, which i THINK would give me an increasingly severe stretch towards one side, assuming a steady curve in the mirror
11:58 sw0rdfish so holy shoot weebl anything over 200kr I'll get charged 25% tax on?
11:58 sw0rdfish from abroad?
11:58 sw0rdfish so I'm better off getting it from robonor.no? cuz it'll be the same
11:59 sw0rdfish furrywolf, you think they suck, that much? huh?
11:59 weebl sw0rdfish: yeah pretty much
11:59 furrywolf yes.
11:59 weebl do you have any kind of old RC car or anything?
11:59 sw0rdfish weebl, ok robonor it is then.
11:59 sw0rdfish no actually I don't :(
12:00 weebl I bought a really good one from hobbyking, was like 500nok for a properly good rc car, batteries, charger and tx/rx
12:00 Triffid_Hunter can get good ones from toyworld sometimes
12:00 furrywolf they're the same thing the basic stamp used to be... let's make the microcontroller version of AOL, that's more a brand than a useful product, aimed at people with no skills, and sell overpriced accessories, while making everything marginally non-standard to make sure no one learns about the real world.
12:01 Skwint are you complaining about them or writing your own business plan?
12:02 sw0rdfish whats good for learning, in your opinion furrywolf
12:02 weebl sw0rdfish: get an arduino, end of duscussion
12:02 Triffid_Hunter sw0rdfish: F4 discovery should keep you going for a while ;)
12:02 weebl :P
12:02 furrywolf launchpad, any of the chinese pic/dspic/etc dev boards, etc.
12:02 sw0rdfish lol ^^
12:02 Skwint obviously all us hobbyists should go get a degree in electrical engineering like REAL men, and solder chips onto the board ourselves
12:03 Triffid_Hunter personally I like the arduino hardware well enough but loathe the software with a passion
12:03 rizlah Solder chips onto the board? Real men don't need plastic enclosures for the bare metal.
12:03 furrywolf bbl, batteries down to 23.01v, time to go into power-saving mode.
12:04 furrywolf the software that's part of the non-standard-so-people-learn-nothing-about-the-real-world I mentioned? :)
12:04 Skwint the great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from!
12:04 Skwint and I like project designer :p
12:05 rizlah The great thing about mainstream useful standards is that corporations own overly broad patents to said standards and request an arm and a leg if one chooses to implement it and make money
12:05 rizlah That is the real world.
12:05 sw0rdfish or I could just get both arduino and launchpad (considering launchpads cost only $4.3 :D)
12:05 weebl sw0rdfish: just get an arduino
12:06 sw0rdfish weebl, so what would the project you suggested be like?
12:06 weebl :P
12:06 weebl be like? fun :P
12:06 wint has an axon2 and loves it, but it's not as cheap as an ard
12:06 sw0rdfish an RC car controlled by my pc mouse or android phone (don't have one)
12:06 sw0rdfish so I'd go for a pc mouse
12:07 furrywolf I'm picking up a dsPIC dev board next... I need the 6-channel precision pwm for a 100A switching supply I'm working on.
12:07 furrywolf but, now avoiding running out of power is more important. bbl.
12:08 sw0rdfish weebl, ^^
12:08 weebl well you'd need an arduino, some motor controller thing, most likely a servo, and some bluetooth unit or something
12:10 sw0rdfish http://www.robonor.no/mage/default/arduino.html tell me which arduino to get then :)
12:10 sw0rdfish weebl, ^^
12:10 weebl and then you have one app on your arduino that translates the position/movement of the mouse into commands on how to move the servo and turn the motor
12:10 Triffid_Hunter hint: tank-style cars are /waay/ easier to code for than types with ackerman steering
12:10 weebl and an app on your computer that reads mouse data and sends it
12:10 weebl hah yeah
12:10 Triffid_Hunter trust me, I wrote code for an ackerman car ages ago
12:11 Triffid_Hunter you have to create virtual circles either side of the car, and if you want to go to a location in the circle you have to invert steering and go backwards until the target is no longer in the circle
12:12 weebl I reckong ackerman = standard car steering
12:12 weebl if thats the case, its a fuckload easier
12:13 rizlah weebl: An app on your computer that reads mouse data and sends it? cat /dev/input/mice | send_app
12:13 theBear gotta love the 'new' normalised input layer :)
12:13 weebl well that could work :P
12:13 sw0rdfish gotta love linux too :D
12:14 sw0rdfish <sw0rdfish> http://www.robonor.no/mage/default/arduino.html tell me which arduino to get then :)
12:14 sw0rdfish <sw0rdfish> weebl, ^^
12:14 Triffid_Hunter weebl: yes, ackerman is standard cars
12:14 weebl buy an arduino uno
12:14 weebl Triffid_Hunter: using that for my dissertation
12:15 theBear for rue, and others of like mind http://xkcd.com/205/
12:15 Triffid_Hunter sw0rdfish: I like the 1280, or 2560 with ftdi chip if you can find one. the 8u2 on the unos isn't quite reliable enough for my liking
12:15 sw0rdfish well I'm gonna get the cheaper one out of those two in that page weebl... as I want to do this at 500nok or below
12:17 weebl sw0rdfish: the uno is pretty much the cheapest it gets
12:17 weebl you get cheaper versions but they require soldering
12:18 sw0rdfish good... I'll learn soldering then :D
12:18 weebl :P
12:18 sw0rdfish damn this sounds interesting although its expensive as fook
12:18 sw0rdfish http://www.robonor.no/mage/default/robot/romeo-is-an-all-in-one-microcontroller-arduino-compatible.html
12:20 weebl the standard arduino uno is definetly the way to go for your first one
12:20 sw0rdfish yep ... can't afford that 400kr thing
12:20 sw0rdfish anyways
12:21 sw0rdfish ok so thats -259 from my budget... lets look for an RC car :)
12:21 weebl I dont think you can do it for 500tbh
12:22 sw0rdfish how much then?
12:23 weebl well I could aim for at least 750, potentially more
12:23 sw0rdfish I see.
12:23 weebl cheap rc cars would need a motor controller too
12:23 sw0rdfish well I'll somehow push the budget to 850 or something.
12:24 sw0rdfish are there .no sites I can find good RC cars ?
12:24 weebl well good ones are expensive :P
12:25 weebl some cheap thing from a toystore + a suitable motor controller would do
12:26 Triffid_Hunter remember you want two motor controllers (or a dual) if you get differential drive (tank-style)
12:26 weebl tahts true
12:26 Triffid_Hunter ackerman uses one motor and a servo
12:26 weebl you can hack together something with some wood or metal, some motors and wheels if you do it tank style
12:27 Skwint cheap RC cars don't need a motor controller?
12:27 Skwint well, atleast, I am controlling mine without one
12:27 weebl some kind of controller
12:27 sw0rdfish hey I got an old used printer the other day... can that help?
12:27 Skwint yeah, ok, but that is built into them already
12:27 sw0rdfish for the motor part
12:28 weebl sw0rdfish: yeah, in theory it would
12:28 Skwint you just need to find the bit you poke to make it move
12:28 Skwint also, there is a tutorial online for $50 robot
12:28 Skwint if you need a cheap option
12:28 sw0rdfish where?
12:29 Skwint http://www.societyofrobots.com/step_by_step_robot.shtml
12:30 Skwint Mines an RC car hack and I'm writing it up but at the moment it doesn't steer round obstacles and consequently I've broken something in it and need to poke around before it's finished
12:33 weebl I bought a full grown *proper* rc car with a PPM based motor controller and servo
12:33 weebl made life so simple
12:34 Skwint yeah - mine has servo steering
12:34 Skwint which is actually a bad thing, but what the hell, I'm in it for fun
12:35 weebl tank like steering is actually harder for gps navigation like I'm doing
12:39 weebl or well a little bit
12:41 sw0rdfish I see.
12:43 weebl but yeah, tank-like steering is a good call for your first robot
12:57 Tom_L http://www2.electronicproducts.com/Researchers_develop_robotic_hand_with_tactual_sensation-article-fajb_robotic_hand_april2012-html.aspx
13:07 katsmeow-afk when did Iran shoot down a spy plane we didn't know about? The one they did shoot down is a clone of the 1960's spy plane developed as a piggyback daughter for the SR71
13:08 elektrinis hi
13:08 tobbor hi elektrinis.
13:08 katsmeow-afk much like the cars back then had fins and cars now don't, they remove the fins from the 1960's model, and put in a modern engine
13:08 elektrinis anyone has a CNC mill?
13:08 elektrinis I am looking for an easy-to-use CAM software
13:09 elektrinis I work with Solidworks mostly
13:09 Tom_itx i use smartcam
13:09 Tom_itx ask in #linuxcnc
13:10 elektrinis does it run undew win7?
13:10 Tom_itx mastercam is popular but
13:10 Tom_itx costs
13:10 Tom_itx probably so
13:10 elektrinis mastercam is hard to hack :)
13:10 Tom_itx neither are cheap
13:10 Tom_itx we discourage such practices
13:11 elektrinis its naive to expect home user with DIY mill to purchase mastercam
13:12 Tom_itx http://freenode.net/privacy_change.html
13:12 elektrinis 404
13:12 Tom_itx hah
13:12 Tom_itx so it is
13:13 Tom_itx it said: 'big brother is watching you'
13:13 katsmeow-afk it was a April 1 prank
13:13 Tom_itx the 404 pretty much confirms that
13:13 elektrinis :)
13:14 Tom_itx http://www.smartcamcnc.com/
13:14 elektrinis all those anti-pirasy agencies are nothing more than a today's terrorists
13:15 katsmeow-afk like how can you show it on tv, where it's ok to recordit, but downloading it online and recording it is illegal? wth??
13:17 Tom_itx elektrinis, i use it on this: http://tom-itx.dyndns.org:81/~webpage/boards/USBTiny_Mkii/Boxes/milling1.jpg
13:18 Tom_itx and yes i did pay for it
13:18 elektrinis nice
13:18 elektrinis how much is it?
13:18 Tom_itx back then it was ~8k
13:18 elektrinis :(
13:18 elektrinis dams thats up in the sky
13:18 elektrinis damn*
13:19 Tom_itx it paid for itself the first year
13:19 elektrinis 8k for smartcam you mean?
13:19 Tom_itx yes
13:19 elektrinis :(
13:19 elektrinis average sallary in my country is ~0,5k :)
13:20 Tom_itx http://www.cambam.info/
13:20 katsmeow-afk "According to technology advisory firm IDC, the world�s data in 2007 totaled nearly exabytes. One exabyte equals 1018 bytes. "
13:25 rizlah 1018 bytes?
13:25 rizlah Think you're off by a few orders of magnitude.
13:26 katsmeow-afk i didn't write it, i am only reporting it, for your derision and amusement
13:27 rizlah katsmeow-afk: You know anything about blue/brown key switches in mechanical keyboards?
13:28 katsmeow-afk no
13:28 rizlah ah :(
13:33 weebl I have heard that one is incredibly good and the other is absolutely useless, some fanboy of blue said this
13:34 Tom_itx believe what you will on the interweb
13:35 katsmeow-afk i dunno, i get inexpensive keybds with keys that are easy to press down, and as quiet as possible
13:35 katsmeow-afk i don't open them up to check their color
13:35 Tom_itx i got some $7 ones for half price
13:36 theBear lol, kids these days
13:36 m_itx smacks theBear with a spatula of h
13:36 katsmeow-afk i tend to get 4 at least, so all stations have the same keybd
13:36 theBear hehe
13:36 Tom_itx i bet if the truth were known you'd be the kid
13:36 weebl there is some difference between the buttons that is about as signifficant as the difference between aluminium and copper speaker cables
13:37 theBear yeah, but i wouldn't do silly things like get excited about the colour the membrane switches in a dirt cheap keyboard :)
13:37 Tom_itx oh hell no
13:37 katsmeow-afk for high power hifi, aluminum sucks, it's resiatance is 6x that of copper, and in high power it matters
13:37 theBear weebl, what ? they work perfectly until one of them doesn't ? <grin>
13:37 Tom_itx i still have an omnikey though
13:38 weebl fair enough, might have been a shit example :P
13:38 theBear i do remember back in the day when i made a LOT of speaker cables working at the music shop (doing repairs also of course, i just had a knack for awesome cables) doing some maths here and there.... from memory with 'common' gauge cable, somewhere around #12, with 4 ohm speakers, you lost around 50 watts over a 50meter cable
13:39 katsmeow-afk for a 1kw per channel, you're swinging 125v rms into 8 ohms speakers, and 8 amps
13:39 katsmeow-afk i'd use copper
13:39 katsmeow-afk for 4 ohms, 16amps , i'd use copper
13:39 theBear i've only ever seen enough aluminium 'wires' to count on my hands.... it's VERY unpopular and anywhere laws apply, illegal in this country
13:39 weebl I perfer unicorn horn dust and the shattered dreams of starving african children
13:40 theBear hehe
13:40 katsmeow-afk bear, the stupidity of allowing aluminum wire in hose wiring,, can only be the usa
13:41 katsmeow-afk house
13:42 theBear hehe, i like the way they combine it with those pressure/V one-way-insert connectors :)
13:42 katsmeow-afk wire up an outlet with #12 Al, run a big kw nukebox on it for a week, the outlet no longer works, and the house may have burned down
13:42 theBear pure genius
13:43 katsmeow-afk yeas, and some of those connectors wold have just cut the wire in two
13:44 katsmeow-afk i once stress tested a 4-0 Al SE cable at 180amps, in an hour it was way to hot to touch, but NEC rates it at 200amps continuous
13:45 katsmeow-afk it prolly got too hot to touch much sooner, i just hadn't gone back to feel it sooner
13:45 theBear those crazy nec guys.. making vcrs and tv's then rating cables for the world :)
13:45 katsmeow-afk you know there's different necs!
13:46 katsmeow-afk just like different abcs
13:46 katsmeow-afk your aussy abc has much more interesting reads, and more of them, than the usa abc
13:47 katsmeow-afk i should be doing things irl
13:47 katsmeow-afk all that rain they scheduled for here today is sitting out in the Gulf of Mexico atm
13:49 Squint we have snow
13:49 Steffanx That's a complaint or … ?
13:49 Squint it's an observation
13:49 Steffanx Snow in the uk.. in April?
13:49 Squint my complaint would be that I spent a week skiing in the mountains in ridiculous heat wave and then came home and it snowed
13:49 Squint yeah
13:49 Squint all over the place
13:49 Squint the flowers aren't happy about it - they thought it was spring :/
13:50 Steffanx And you too?
13:50 duckinator we're having a similar issue on the east coast of the US...except everything thought it was Summer :D
13:50 Squint I have swapped hemisphere the last two winters so I've gone 2.5 years without seeing one :)
13:50 Steffanx Here in Dutchland it's like always
13:50 Squint flat?
13:50 Steffanx Not good, but also not too bad
13:51 Steffanx And flat, yes
13:53 sw0rdfish weebl, you still there brah?
13:53 katsmeow-afk well, i got the mighty impressive (and bought broken at thrift store) Ridgid jigsaw useable yesterday, i need to go use it, bbl
13:54 Steffanx You know how to use it katsmeow-afk ? :P
13:58 DanFrederiksen Gardena just put out a lawnmower bot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlz6HvU0X_A. about 1500 euro/2000$ but needs a wire around the lawn and the same old headless zig zag movement
13:58 DanFrederiksen for that price you'd think it would have GPS and a camera and be a little smarter
13:59 Steffanx GPS?
13:59 Steffanx The lawn here isn't that big :P
13:59 DanFrederiksen doesn't have to be :)
14:00 DanFrederiksen GPS can be precise down to around 1m. that's a very valuable aid
14:00 DanFrederiksen and a gps chip isn't that expensive
14:04 DanFrederiksen maybe a compass chip too. maybe an IR laser and some reflector markers here and there as guide points
14:04 DanFrederiksen what do you call the material that always reflects light back?
14:05 theBear mirror ?
14:05 theBear oh, you mean back to the source ?
14:06 theBear the ones they use for say, shop-entry-sensors are reflector/diffusers, just like pushbike 'reflectors'
14:06 Steffanx nice nice .. unresponsive are soo nice
14:06 Steffanx *+ systems
14:06 Steffanx zlog
14:06 theBear they do spread the light, but at the same time you get MUCH more directly back to the source when off-axis vs say a regular mirror
14:06 DanFrederiksen ok, I guess you don't have a special word for it in english. in danish we say 'reflex'
14:07 theBear oh, don't think we do... also they're uncommon here outside of bicycles... we don't have rules about when you break down in a car for example
14:07 Steffanx Aren't they just called 'reflectors'?
14:07 DanFrederiksen well it's not a widely used material but sometimes on clothing too
14:08 theBear was driving in HEAVY rain at top speed (highway) yesterday.... a broken down truck had a bunch, they were VERY useful in well, not running into a truck at high speed in poor vision
14:08 Steffanx We call that 'reflectors' here :)
14:08 Tom_itx reflective strips
14:08 Tom_itx reflectors
14:08 DanFrederiksen Steffanx, yeah I guess if it's a unit. will do here
14:08 Tom_itx mirror
14:08 Steffanx but we dutchies are very englishinated
14:08 theBear all those are generic terms in english tho... reflector means anything that reflects, loosely speaking
14:08 Tom_itx i reflect back on the past too
14:08 Tom_itx so it can have several meanings
14:08 theBear i suppose 'reflective strip' is a kinda soft-proper-noun
14:09 DanFrederiksen so, a couple of reflectors as markers for a robotic lawnmower
14:09 Tom_itx and fuzzy?
14:09 DanFrederiksen or just a camera
14:09 DanFrederiksen I also wonder why they don't use reflectors for roomba instead of a non rechargeable battery powered IR beacon for boundaries
14:10 Tom_itx gps is and satelite imagery is used for fertilizing fields here so nutrients get where they are most needed
14:10 theBear DanFrederiksen, maybe lookup the sticker-pads they use for modern 'movie magic' ... kinda crash-dummy looking targets that stick easily to all kinds of things.... i can only assume they are cheap and disposable
14:10 Tom_itx instead of the ole crop duster days
14:10 sw0rdfish aha
14:11 DanFrederiksen soon robots will do every such thing
14:11 Tom_itx i'd consider those robots
14:11 Tom_itx even though a human is driving them
14:11 DanFrederiksen I feel robotics for 'trivial' work could explode any day
14:12 Tom_itx the dispense mechanism is driven via �C and gps etc
14:12 DanFrederiksen seeems there are huge untapped opportunities
14:12 Steffanx Just give it a webcam + remote control
14:12 Steffanx and let people all over the words control it :P
14:12 DanFrederiksen robot vacuum for instance could be much better. lawn too
14:12 DanFrederiksen a friend of mine suggested a remote controlled cleaning droid and pay indians to do it :)
14:13 Steffanx Nah, crowd sourcing :)
14:13 DanFrederiksen hehe
14:13 DanFrederiksen that would go bad
14:13 Steffanx Just make something so it has some limitations/borders/whatever
14:13 Steffanx A fence
14:13 Steffanx The easy way
14:14 DanFrederiksen nah, smarts is the way to go
14:14 Steffanx No, crowd sourcing it is
14:14 Tom_itx drive a stake in the middle of the field and tie a string to the mower
14:14 DanFrederiksen an uC and camera is dirt cheap. once the code is there production costs nothing
14:14 Steffanx *-it
14:14 Tom_itx soon it will wind it's way to the center
14:14 Tom_itx cheap and easy
14:14 Steffanx Nah
14:14 DanFrederiksen including the dog :)
14:14 Tom_itx and you will have a mysterious crop circle
14:15 DanFrederiksen don't get me started on crop circles :)
14:15 Steffanx I prefer my idea
14:15 Tom_itx of course you do
14:15 DanFrederiksen a droid with a camera could also locate weeds
14:15 Steffanx You too
14:15 DanFrederiksen a mower droid of course
14:15 Tom_itx put a goat on it for a week
14:16 Steffanx Or fly with a quadrocopter 'upside' down over it
14:16 DanFrederiksen and in principle it could do levelling. if there are bumps it could poke the ground to make it perfectly smooth
14:16 DanFrederiksen pretty obvious to use droids for golf green keeping as well
14:16 theBear which reminds me, i gotta find or learn how to make a app for my mobile i can pick a spot/area out of a pic from the cam and get it to tell me what colour it is (for example last week i had to keep getting my mum to come check a orange/green charging light for me while babying some much neglected deep cycles)
14:17 Steffanx Hehe
14:17 Steffanx Shouldn't be that hard theBear
14:17 DanFrederiksen theBear, if you turn off other light in the room it's trivial
14:17 Steffanx Even when there is other light it should be doable
14:17 theBear Steffanx, indeed, just that if i gotta write my first android app there'll be a minor learning curve, apart from the dev env i know nothign :)
14:17 DanFrederiksen of course, just a bit more complex algo
14:18 theBear DanFrederiksen, not really... my eyes aren't real good with red/green colours
14:18 Steffanx Java it is..
14:18 theBear oh, i thought you meant by eye
14:18 DanFrederiksen theBear, a camera is
14:18 theBear but modern cams are pretty good, if it can "see" a led easily, and brightly, it should easily be able to pick colours that different
14:18 DanFrederiksen theBear, if you have trouble telling colors apart you could get some color filters
14:19 Steffanx Just compile opencv for your phone and you have all the advanced stuff you need
14:19 theBear that's an interesting idea, still bulkier than the phone i already carry
14:19 DanFrederiksen ah sure
14:20 theBear Steffanx, surely that's overkill... i use some api thing for cam/grabbing images, then to select a point/area, after that it's trivial to code some kinda colour-picker, probably with both 'plain english' and spectrum map of some kind, to pick 'tricky' colours/subtle differences
14:21 Steffanx yeah :P
14:21 Steffanx but hobby bobby projects should be over-engineered
14:22 theBear heh, why not <grin>
14:22 theBear i really wanna spend more than a day or two in a row here/'at home' again soon.. i'm all ready to start playing with micros and at least moving things again, but i never get a chance, and i don't got any usb-anything so i can't take a little board/motor/whatever driver away with me and use the netbook
14:23 theBear i suppose i knew that ONE DAY i'd end up with a machine that didn't hav ea real par/serial port :)
14:23 Steffanx ethernet/usb :D
14:27 theBear pfft, ethernet is years ahead of me... i'm not even up to usb yet <grin>
14:31 Steffanx the old man can't keep in track with the modern technologies?
14:33 theBear i know of them, but i still haven't used/bought a 'new' avr since they change 90s to attiny :)
14:33 theBear it's been a strange many years.... life got in the way
14:34 SolarNRG back from town
14:37 Steffanx Time to see chelsea win?
15:16 theBear i wonder.. phone with camera, stereo audio out, i could make a headphone -> ir/red led adapter, and make a soft-heartrate/spo2 meter
15:17 Steffanx :)
15:19 Steffanx Just record a video and try to write the algorithm(s) on your first :)
16:05 Skwint you can pick up a heart beat on a phone camera?
16:05 Skwint you could just make the screen display a pulse graph instead of messing with LEDs if it can do that :p
16:21 theBear that's already been done with the built in 'flash' led, but to do spo2 you need to use an ir source alternating measurements with a red/visible source (there's some spectrum dip/peak relating to blood oxygen at common ir freqs) and then take the % difference as the base for your value, obviously accounting/calibrating for the camera/led/ir source in questions
16:21 theBear heck, put yer finger on the flash led and you can see heartbeat with your bare eyes
16:22 theBear but to do spo2 (blood oxygen saturation) as well you gotta be able to kill the visible and just measure the invisible, thus i'm thinking 'stereo leds'
16:25 katsmeow-afk [13:44] <Steffanx> You know how to use it katsmeow-afk ? :P <== why do you always doubt me when i say i can do something that requires knowledge?
16:34 katsmeow-afk �Where do you ship from?
16:34 katsmeow-afk This item ships from ???, ???, China.
16:34 katsmeow-afk �Do you offer international shipping?
16:34 katsmeow-afk This seller doesn't offer international shipping.
16:34 katsmeow-afk but they do ship to usa
16:34 katsmeow-afk that tells me something
16:34 Squint well, do you live in ???land?
16:34 Squint the USA isn't international, right?
16:35 Squint international means "not the USA"
16:36 katsmeow-afk what??
16:36 Squint </sarcasm>
16:36 tsmeow-afk understand her own sarcasm, not anyone el
16:38 katsmeow-afk 1) seller lives and ships from China , B) buyer (that's me) lives in usa , III) seller does not ship internationally, but does ship to usa, presumeably a part of China
16:39 Squint it's near beijing I saw it once
16:39 Squint there's a wall separating them
16:39 LoRez there's a city in china called USA
16:41 katsmeow-afk we are not taught that in city of usa, bad educaton system and internet ismonitored here
16:44 moriarty internet is monitored in USA?
16:44 moriarty oh china lol
16:45 moriarty anyway didn't the US signed ACTA already?
16:45 moriarty wouldn't that effectively mean that American Internet = Chinese Internet these days?
16:45 moriarty ;)
16:45 katsmeow-afk pretty much
16:46 moriarty it was pretty clever how they did it too
16:46 moriarty sneak in SOPA and let the corporate outfits protest against it, then ACTA passes by unnoticed with a gag order on corporations via NDAs
16:46 katsmeow-afk i thought it was stupid the seller will not ship out of his country, and ships to usa ,,,,,,, i sometimes post examples of stupidity i must deal with
16:47 moriarty lol
16:49 moriarty http://welkerswikinomics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/iPhone.png <- for 1.8% going to China, not going to expect much from them
16:49 katsmeow-afk i bought something from China for 99 cents, free shipping, had to burn $8 in gas to goto post office to sign for it,, even tho it was brought out to my place by mail carrier, takes two hours to essentially follow her back to town to sign for it there
16:50 moriarty what was that 0.99 that included free shipping?
16:51 moriarty was this in conjunction with other stuff bought?
16:51 katsmeow-afk yep, one item, 99 cents price, free s&h
16:51 moriarty even Amazon only guarantees free shipping above a certain amount, like $30 or something
16:51 Squint she collects chinese postage stamps
16:51 moriarty lol Squint
16:51 katsmeow-afk $8 in usa gas to go get it from postoffice AFTER it had already been brought to my house and not delivered
16:52 katsmeow-afk i did not buy from Amazon, this was bottom feeding on Ebay
16:52 moriarty with today's oil prices, i'm surprised that the free shipping model still exists
16:52 moriarty i wonder how they do that
16:52 katsmeow-afk qty 10 ; 1watt ; cool white led
16:52 moriarty airlines all bankrupting, but free shipping still exists
16:52 moriarty :P
16:52 moriarty odd
16:53 katsmeow-afk seller puts out teasers to attract buyers, i buy the teasers
16:55 DanFrederiksen katsmeow-afk, if I may ask, you were once building a steel ship. did you ever complete it?
16:56 Tom_itx no
16:56 Tom_itx it was abandoned in another state
16:57 DanFrederiksen ok. pretty wild project
16:57 Tom_itx parts of it anyway
16:57 katsmeow-afk word to those collecting wisdom, check mounted led for wobble against heatsink, and check for heatsink goop, i just got one with no goop and 3w led not touching heatsink
16:58 katsmeow-afk DanFrederiksen, i am told you are talking to me, but as i put you on ignore years ago, you are still on that ignore
16:58 DanFrederiksen I understand
16:58 katsmeow-afk so i cannot see a word you say
17:00 katsmeow-afk and what's less obvious is: verify they got correct polarity before you power up, and note the cheap led assy do not include voltage/current controllers
17:00 DanFrederiksen a boat is a fairly romantic notion but I can't really get excited about them. it's always too obvious to me that they would need UFO capability to really fullfil that romantic idea. in a reality a boat is a super fuel hungry slow thing at the mercy of weather
17:01 DanFrederiksen -a
17:03 DanFrederiksen anyone hacked a roomba to make it smarter?
17:04 tsmeow-afk is going to mount one at each corner of car, and one under each door, to illuminate the ground around car at
17:04 DanFrederiksen it could use a brain upgrade
17:04 moriarty DanFrederiksen, Emotivs are cooler :D
17:05 DanFrederiksen not familiar with that
17:05 Squint lots of people. It's people who succeeded that are hard to find.
17:05 moriarty http://www.emotiv.com/
17:07 katsmeow-afk i remember when eyeblink monitors were considered "experimental medical devices", this device hasto be *way* out there
17:10 katsmeow-afk in 1986, i made up an eyeblink controller for an environmental control system input, for quadrepelegics, and Medicare and Social Security would not allow me to give or sell it to anyone that needed it
17:10 katsmeow-afk yet anotehr stupidity i haveto put up with
17:10 Steffanx why you take me so serious katsmeow-afk ?
17:11 katsmeow-afk why are you so down on me, Steffanx?
17:11 Steffanx Nah, you just should take me too serious
17:11 katsmeow-afk you used some words, are the words meaningless to you?
17:12 Steffanx Not meaningless, but also not very serious
17:13 Steffanx I just didn't say "j/k", because that ruins everything
17:14 katsmeow-afk yeas, would have ruined me misunderstanding it was a joke of some kind, and then i wouldn't have been upset
17:15 Steffanx Don't be upset next time.. just imagine i said "just kidding" :)
17:19 Squint that statement has unfortunate recursive properties
17:20 tsmeow-afk
17:20 Steffanx Whatever Squint :p
17:21 Steffanx I pretty sure that's because of my English skills :P
17:23 Tom_itx you got skilz?
17:24 Steffanx No, that's my point :P
17:24 DanFrederiksen anyone ever done a project with a uC with a camera chip?
17:25 Tom_itx cmu camera
17:25 katsmeow-afk Tom you lost the implied j/k tag too
17:25 katsmeow-afk basically, to be safe, disregard everything he says
17:25 Tom_itx and the gameboy camera with a 68332
17:26 Steffanx He 'knows' me katsmeow-afk
17:29 katsmeow-afk Tom knows the 68332 also
17:29 Tom_itx not so much anymore
17:32 Tom_itx where do i export bookmarks in FF?
17:32 Tom_itx i can never remember that
17:32 tsmeow-afk doesn't
17:33 katsmeow-afk usually, if i bookmarked in FF, it's because i don't wanna read it in IE
17:35 Steffanx "bookmarks > show all bookmarks"
17:36 Steffanx and then somewhere there :0
17:36 Steffanx :)
17:36 Tom_itx i figured it out
17:37 Steffanx I have firefox 14.something on os x, so i've no idea 'where somewhere there' is on older versions not on os x :0
17:38 Tom_itx 11
17:38 Tom_itx 'current'
17:40 Tom_itx ok, how do i run a .bin file under linux?
17:41 katsmeow-afk erg, i need to go ~40ft afk , bbl
17:41 katsmeow-afk i dunno nix either
17:41 katsmeow-afk prolly need to run it ON nix, not UNDER it, but i guess that depends
17:41 katsmeow-afk bbl
17:41 Steffanx ha katsmeow-afk :p
17:42 Steffanx chmod +x ……
17:42 Steffanx ./run.bin ?
17:47 Tom_itx i'm trying to remember what all i had installed
17:49 Steffanx Sure you need it if you can't remember you had it installed?
17:50 Steffanx it = something
17:50 Tom_itx well it was a test machine and i had some stuff i really didn't want on it
17:51 Tom_itx i made a list of stuff i wanted but i'm not sure i got it all
18:01 Tom_itx the sky sounds angry
19:46 katsmeow-afk 2ma at 15vdc is enough to solidly turn on *any* mosfet, right?
19:46 dunz0r Should be. That is quite a lot of power.
19:46 katsmeow-afk can i drop down to 1ma? or is turn-on going to be excessive? or is that gonna depend on my mosfet and application, as usual?
19:47 dunz0r I can't say some really weird super high current mosfet need more than 15V, but I doubt it.
19:47 dunz0r 2ma I'm quite sure of. 1ma, not as much. Datasheet etc.
19:47 katsmeow-afk is 15v on the gate going to damage any power mosfet made for direct operation on the 120vac line?
19:48 katsmeow-afk should i reduce to 12v?
19:48 dunz0r It depends on the mosfet.
19:48 katsmeow-afk drain-source current will be 125ma
19:49 katsmeow-afk 90 to 120vac
19:49 katsmeow-afk err, vdc
19:49 dunz0r 120VDC :o
19:49 tsmeow-afk
19:49 e_house
19:49 e_house asks why he's nod
19:49 e_house nods
19:50 tsmeow-afk drops to
19:50 dunz0r Only 125mA though. But that's 15W. Make sure your cables can handle it.
19:51 katsmeow-afk i have 300+ of 600v mosfets, high resistance, like 1 to 3 ohms Ron, different part numbers, so i was hoping one drive scheme would handle them all
19:51 dunz0r Aah.
19:51 dunz0r The current over the Ron will be quite high though.
19:51 katsmeow-afk hmm?
19:51 dunz0r Nevermind... I got things mixed up.
19:52 dunz0r I did a brainfart and though of Ron as a constant.
19:52 katsmeow-afk oh, like at 60v while it's transitioning, that's why i asked if the 2ma or 1ma was enough to charge the gate capacitance
19:52 katsmeow-afk fast enough
19:53 katsmeow-afk i am not accustomed to driving mosfets, old mosfets, leaky ones, or being able to drive them slowly,, or having to drive them slowly to limit drive power at 100v
19:55 Triffid_Hunter katsmeow-afk: got a number for Qg total gate charge? Qg / I = turn on/off time
19:55 Triffid_Hunter katsmeow-afk: warning: value is a fairly good shortcut estimation, not an accurate value
19:55 katsmeow-afk no, i got a mess of mosfets i haveto unsolder/pull from existing equipment o even see the part numbers
19:56 katsmeow-afk and part numbers vary, i was hopping for a shortcut
19:57 katsmeow-afk ok, i picked up 3 units, on two i cannot see part numbers, but they are not IRF830, the 3rd unit is an IRF830
19:57 katsmeow-afk getting datasheet now
19:58 dunz0r Where did you get that many mosfets?
19:58 katsmeow-afk people throw away the darnest things
19:58 katsmeow-afk i collect the darnest things
19:59 katsmeow-afk 300+ set-top cable tv convertor boxes
19:59 Triffid_Hunter katsmeow-afk: IRF830 has Qg of 30nC, so 30uS transition time at 1mA gate drive
19:59 katsmeow-afk free
19:59 katsmeow-afk i scrapped the cases in exchange for the electronics
19:59 katsmeow-afk 30us should be plenty fast enough to transition 125ma thru 120vdc without blowing up
20:00 Triffid_Hunter sure as long as you're not switching it fast.. don't want to spend an appreciable percentage of the time transitioning
20:01 katsmeow-afk i have a small pile, handfulls, of high power triacs i could use if i pulsed the dc to turn them off, but that gets complicated
20:01 katsmeow-afk and using a 30amp triac for 125ma may not work
20:45 sw0rdfish hey
20:49 rue_house how about 500A triacs?
20:52 sw0rdfish so is radio the only technology for wireless communication of anything and everything?
20:53 sw0rdfish like for laptops to use the internet... for uav's to broadcast video and stuff
20:55 theBear only real popular one i can think of
20:56 theBear there are a few others
23:25 katsmeow-afk laser, smoke signals, flags (semaphores), yelling is wireless, dirty looks, books are wireless, etc
23:56 katsmeow-afk 4 April 2012 Last updated at 17:42 ; Print-your-own-robots developed in US ; Printed-on-demand robots might be a reality before the end of the decade if a US-based project achieves its goals. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17614392