#robotics Logs
Aug 11 2012
#robotics Calendar
00:03 furrywolf I think I need to either replace the handles (hard, expensive), or shim the cables a bit tighter.
00:04 ace4016 i don't know enough about car mechanics to do anything other than regular maintenance
00:05 furrywolf I know enough to do most tasks.
00:06 furrywolf after I get the doors opening from the outside, it needs to be detailed... the last owner got sick of the doors not opening, and it sat for a few years... has some mildew.
00:06 furrywolf but, hey, a $800 740i with a perfect body...
00:07 ace4016 nice running engine? (i.e. are the important bits working fine)
00:07 furrywolf yep
00:07 furrywolf 5spd auto shifts well too... I hate autos, but at least this one seems to work.
00:07 ace4016 ah; then mostly cosmetic :P
00:07 furrywolf 4.0L V8... not what I need, but it runs well.
00:08 furrywolf I mostly want a temporary car while I look for something better.
00:22 rue_house 4L should be pretty punchy
00:22 rue_house unless its big
00:25 furrywolf it's a boat.
00:25 furrywolf something like 4400lb curb weight
00:26 furrywolf it needs all 4l to move that up hills.
00:26 DagoRed why is flyback not klined?
00:26 furrywolf why are you asking in here?
00:27 DagoRed Because it's shit storm if I ask in electronics.
00:27 DagoRed Hey Rue.
00:28 furrywolf so don't bring the crap in here.
00:31 rue_house hey
00:31 rue_house I think flyback has been klined a few times
00:31 rue_house he's banned from most places
00:32 DagoRed crap.... oh well. I thought he was gone for good.
00:32 DagoRed Theos!
00:32 theos he gets auto-klined every week or 2
00:32 theos hey DagoRed :)
00:32 rue_house my ebay items stopped arriving
00:32 DagoRed rue_house: I discovered something for an argument for AVR over Microchip.
00:32 rue_house maybe their all stuck to the magnet I ordered
00:32 theos :)
00:33 rue_house DagoRed, everything?
00:33 DagoRed No.
00:33 DagoRed PWM however... AVR is superior
00:33 rue_house avr is supperiour just across the board
00:33 rue_house it was low on usb for a while
00:34 furrywolf "e38 exterior door handle" "Did you mean: e38 interior door handle ?" I hate search suggestions. If I meant that, I WOULD HAVE TYPED THAT.
00:34 DagoRed meh, it's about the same for USB
00:34 rue_house furrywolf, agreed
00:34 DagoRed furrywolf: that is annoying as hell.
00:35 rue_house Idont mind "No results for ~. Would you like to search for ###?"
00:35 DagoRed rue_house: avr's have glitchless duty cycle and period. On microchip it's only glitchless period
00:35 rue_house DagoRed, hu?
00:35 rue_house cute
00:36 DagoRed In essence, if some tries to make a PWM based DAC on a microchip, they may find themselves in a rather poor position.
00:37 furrywolf dspic.
00:37 DagoRed for 8 bits, AVR's are the best.
00:38 furrywolf the dspic series has lots of shiny pwm bits, as they're meant for use directly driving smps switching elements, etc.
00:38 DagoRed Above that, Microchip wins out hands down until you need the speeds of some of the arm chips.
00:39 DagoRed I designed an AX.25 modem with a dsPIC33. I love those chips.
00:39 DagoRed Plus many of them have native CANBus support which is very nice for some projects in the past.
00:41 furrywolf so I don't need to tell you about the shiny pwm. :P
00:43 DagoRed Nope, preaching to the choir
00:44 rue_house no
00:44 rue_house pics use paged memory, have inferior development systems and poor preformance
00:59 furrywolf bbl, bedtime
00:59 rrywolf curls up on spacekit
01:00 acekitteh petpets and l
01:00 spacekitteh i'm trying to get haskell onto an arm board ;_;
01:00 furrywolf ... why the heck would you want to do that? lol
01:01 spacekitteh because it's easier to solve state space equations with than c/c++ >.>
01:02 ace4016 just use a matrix library >_>
01:02 spacekitteh they are all icky D:
01:02 ace4016 only if you're stubborn :P
01:02 spacekitteh ia m :<
01:02 ace4016 i've learned over the years to just put up with it and just get stuff done
01:03 rue_bed you dont need a matrix library
01:03 rue_bed I have a nice point manipulation library
01:03 ace4016 you do if you do state space
01:03 rue_bed pff
01:04 ace4016 as state space is described in matrix format :P
01:04 rue_bed point manipulation
01:04 ace4016 i'm not sure what that means
01:04 rue_bed rotate(point, point)
01:04 rue_bed tranalate(point, point)
01:04 rue_bed scale (point, point)
01:04 ace4016 oh, so matrix libraries
01:05 ace4016 ;)
01:05 rue_bed no
01:05 rue_bed no matrix overhead
01:05 rue_bed does the calculations directly
01:05 ace4016 matrices do calculations directly ;)
01:05 rue_bed no
01:06 rue_bed they set up arrays, to calculations, summaries, and then decompose the matrix back into points
01:06 ace4016 although rotate/translate/scale are useless for state space >_>
01:06 spacekitteh i'll be using BLAS + GSL anyway
01:06 GuShH "no matrix overhead, just the library overhead, with the matrices inside, but you can't see them so it's OK"
01:06 ace4016 they don't do any of that rue...what 90s lib are you using?
01:06 rue_bed you dont get it
01:07 rue_bed show me matrix code that dons't set 4 elements of an object to 0 before doing anything with it
01:07 spacekitteh wat
01:07 rue_bed 4 or more
01:08 ace4016 i've mussed around with the complexity of matrices, as well as the fancy math behind it...there is no difference...
01:08 spacekitteh matrix code with a constructor?
01:08 spacekitteh o.O
01:08 rue_bed constructor is part of that garbage overhead I'm talking about
01:08 spacekitteh lol wat
01:09 ace4016 doesn't exist in C :p
01:09 rue_bed the only time matrixes help is when you doing EXACTLY the same transformation to every object
01:09 rue_bed and thats almost never
01:09 spacekitteh o.O
01:09 ace4016 and most of those matrix libs are in C and highly optimized
01:09 rue_bed A = 0; still takes a cycle
01:09 ace4016 why are you setting something to 0?
01:10 rue_bed are the internal matrixies 3x3 or 4x4?
01:10 spacekitteh what internal matrices?
01:10 spacekitteh i'm using a state space description of my system o.o
01:10 ace4016 depends on the system; in most generic matrix libs, the matrices are mxn
01:10 rue_bed hahah I thought you were talking about maxtrix math
01:10 rue_bed nevermind
01:11 ace4016 they're also not just transforming a point..
01:11 spacekitteh yeah
01:11 spacekitteh exponential of a matrix too
01:11 spacekitteh :3c
01:11 ace4016 the matrices describe the system; so the matrices don't change typically; just the states
01:11 spacekitteh ^
01:11 ace4016 (assuming linear)
01:11 spacekitteh close enough yeah
01:12 ace4016 so yea...whatever overhead you were talking about goes away in the wash, if it even existed
02:15 standoo hi
02:15 ace4016 hi
02:15 standoo is there a robotic platform?
02:15 ace4016 there are many
02:15 e4016 runs off for
02:16 standoo well i actually meant something like this
02:17 standoo http://mech-warfare.com/
02:19 standoo kind of a robot city
02:21 ace4016 the robots or the cities?
02:21 ace4016 or the competition?
02:24 spacekitteh oh wow
02:24 spacekitteh that is amazing
02:25 e4016 doesn't like mech warfar
02:25 spacekitteh i wanna do that but with just, you know, tanks and stuff
02:26 ace4016 all mech warfare did was strap pellet guns on robots that existed for years and place them in a miniature city :/
02:26 ace4016 it's really boring to see them go at it
02:27 spacekitteh i bet it wouldb e
02:27 spacekitteh but it'd be amazing to play
02:28 ace4016 not enough robot carnage like battle bots
02:29 standoo battl3 bots?
02:29 ace4016 they also move very slowly...
02:29 standoo especiall bipeds
02:29 ace4016 yea
02:29 standoo and fall easily too
02:31 spacekitteh i'm making a uav blimp
02:31 spacekitteh i wonder if they'd allow zepplins...
02:32 standoo zeppllins?
02:33 spacekitteh ya, you know, blimps that bombed britain in ww1?
02:33 ace4016 standoo, blimps
02:42 standoo hmm
02:43 standoo that would be difficult to shoot down
02:43 spacekitteh not really
02:43 spacekitteh one or two shots would probably puncture the envelope
02:53 standoo how much helium needed??
07:01 GuShH standoo: depends on it's volume.
07:02 standoo i think the ratio of blimp and the balloon quite big?
07:24 standoo i'm going to get make a robot swarm
08:35 GuShH standoo: it depends on the payload.
08:35 GuShH usually yes, massive "balloon".
08:35 standoo massive yeah
08:35 GuShH there are tons of rc blimp toys...
08:36 GuShH rather useless if theres a tiny bit of wind, and for indoor flight you'd need a huge place.
08:36 standoo an indoor basketball court
08:36 standoo imagine something like blimp wars
08:37 standoo i mean if the balloon was actully cheap to replace
08:37 standoo and the load was actually fall proof
08:37 standoo perhaps it would be fun to shoot each other down
08:47 GuShH meh
08:47 GuShH they are slow moving, boring and expensive things.
08:53 Tom_itx sounds like some women i know
09:54 theBear hehe
09:54 Squint there are model aircraft you can get which have sonic "guns" underneath and cut each others engines out when they detect a hit
09:54 Squint they survive the crash (usually) and sound more fun than balloons
09:55 Squint helicopters also
09:55 Squint http://www.paramountzone.com/fighterbird.htm
09:56 Squint even with balloons I think I'd be inclined to electronically register a hit rather than burst them all the time
09:57 Squint http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=parrot+ar+drone&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aparrot+ar+drone
09:58 ace4016 if you're clever with the robot design, creating a dirigible-bot wouldn't be as big as you'd think..although there is a size limit i'm sure
09:59 GuShH extra points if you can make it fetch soup
09:59 Squint or take photos from space
09:59 GuShH the soup is far more impressive
09:59 Squint true
09:59 ace4016 lol
10:00 ace4016 sadly...that's so true
10:05 GuShH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KIMCH7B28k hahaha
10:37 furrywolf still no kat? :(
10:38 Tom_itx new status symbol?
10:38 Tom_itx :)
10:44 rrywolf sighs and curls up next to spacekit
11:04 rue_house I think kat thinks the fbi is watching her after that last conversation
11:04 ace4016 what was the conversation about?
11:06 rue_house she wants to make a machine for automatically trimming trees, its a bit close to a tree processor and Icant bare to thinkn about the things its like a slaughter, anyhow she seems to take taken what I said a bit wrong
11:10 Tom_itx damn tree huggers
11:20 furrywolf ... you do realize there's already plenty of ways to kill trees, right? an automated trimmer does not seem a major environmental hazard.
11:24 ace4016 trimming a tree isn't cutting it down or destroying it though >_>
11:29 furrywolf bbl, back to arguing with the doors on my new car
11:30 rue_house but those thigns get to me
11:30 rue_house hahah
11:30 rue_house I think my monitor is going
11:31 rue_house top lamp
15:28 rue_house todays goal is to make the element controller
16:26 Tom_itx rue_house show me the heating element
16:50 Atak anyone recommend an avr programmer that works well with linux?
16:50 Atak I've found this but Im not sure how well it works... http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/ATAVRISP2/ATAVRISP2-ND/898891
16:53 Tom_itx mine does
16:54 Tom_itx http://tom-itx.dyndns.org:81/~webpage/boards/USBTiny_Mkii/USBTiny_Mkii_index.php
16:54 Tom_itx need more info there's a 'purchase' link on the menu
16:55 Tom_itx mine emulates the avrisp2
16:55 Tom_itx with a couple additional features
17:04 Atak thanks ill check that out
17:10 GargantuaSauce whats wrong with the arduino toolchain? :J
17:11 ace4016 sometimes you want the raw API
17:12 ace4016 i guess...never used arduino...never needed it >_>
17:12 GargantuaSauce yeah i was sort of kidding
17:12 GargantuaSauce be happy you are in that situation
17:17 rue_house !assist projects/reprap
17:17 tobbor Possibly http://eds.dyndns.org/~ircjunk/projects/reprap
17:17 Tom_itx rue_house you got a min?
17:17 rue_house http://eds.dyndns.org/~ircjunk/projects/reprap/p1040476.jpg
17:17 rue_house the resistors leads are sticking out the sides there
17:17 rue_house try me
17:18 Tom_itx remember that last server install you helped me on?
17:18 Tom_itx ubuntu...
17:18 rue_house ok
17:18 Tom_itx the files we had to edit were... umm.. odd?
17:18 rue_house what do we need to do to it
17:18 Tom_itx do you recall what we had to do different than debian?
17:18 rue_house no
17:18 rue_house whats not working?
17:18 Tom_itx i'm doing it again
17:18 Tom_itx i don't have it installed now
17:19 Tom_itx but i'm taking notes this time
17:19 rue_house then I'm not sure
17:19 rue_house th other workstation in my shop broke
17:19 Tom_itx there was one thing that was in an odd place...
17:19 Tom_itx you don't recall what it was do you?
17:19 rue_house there are lots of things
17:20 Tom_itx i got interfaces and ports.conf
17:20 Tom_itx what else was there?
17:20 rue_house unless I know what were fixing, and what the result of the console commad I give ya is, then I dont know
17:20 Tom_itx i have a few cryptic notes
17:21 rue_house did you put a date at the top of them?
17:21 Tom_itx how does the heater work?
17:21 rue_house its a 5.1R resistor
17:21 rue_house 12V is applied across it
17:21 Tom_itx no nichrome wire?
17:21 rue_house no nichrome wire
17:21 Tom_itx i thought they used that
17:22 rue_house some dew
17:22 Tom_itx what diameter?
17:22 Tom_itx and length
17:22 rue_house the resistor?
17:22 Tom_itx my local guy has several spools of nichrome wire
17:22 rue_house about 1/2" long aout 11.64 dia
17:22 Tom_itx no the wire
17:22 rue_house 11/64
17:22 rue_house I dont know what they use when doing it with nichrome wire
17:23 rue_house about 4.7 to 6 ohms
17:23 Tom_itx k
17:23 rue_house 10-20W
17:23 Tom_itx will 12v burn out that resistor?
17:23 rue_house not if I pushed enough heatsink compound in there
17:24 Tom_itx what's the target tip temp?
17:24 rue_house for PLA about 200c
17:24 rue_house +- 15c
17:28 Tom_itx ok here's the first error:
17:28 Guest10767 root@atom:/etc# /etc/init.d/networking restart
17:28 Guest10767 * Reconfiguring network interfaces... postconf: fatal: open /etc/postfix/main.cf: No such file or directory
17:28 Guest10767 SIOCDELRT: No such process
17:29 rue_house postfix dosn't matter
18:02 Tom_itx rue_house
18:03 Tom_itx what about NameVirtualHost in ports.conf?
18:38 Tom_itx rue_house, do you remember the issue with firfox trying to open the file rather than viewing it?
19:03 rue_house I dont know anyything about prots.conf
19:03 rue_house what fle type
19:04 Tom_itx i think i got that part
19:04 Tom_itx but we had problems before with ff trying to save as instead of showing the files
19:04 Tom_itx .php maybe
19:04 Tom_itx .html maybe
19:04 Tom_itx probably .php
19:10 Tom_itx any ideas?
19:10 Tom_itx it can see the files but it tries to save them instead of view them
19:19 Tom_itx ok, i'm installing php and try that
19:19 Tom_itx that may have been it
19:22 rue_shop3 now the windows machine is down, hard drive crashed
19:22 rue_shop3 like headcrash
19:23 rue_shop3 the parallel port card I have dont' fit the pci slots on this machine
19:23 rue_shop3 must be a 3.3/5V thing
19:23 rue_shop3 there are other slots int eh machine but there is no riser for them
19:23 rue_shop3 which I have to have because of it being flat
19:25 rue_shop3 damned computers are falling over as fast as I can upright them
19:27 Tom_itx rue_shop3, any ideas?
19:27 rue_shop3 I dont know what the question is
19:27 Tom_itx why does firfox try to save as instead of view a .php index file
19:27 Tom_itx from my webpage
19:27 Tom_itx i installed the server side php5 stuff
19:34 Paradoxial Tom_itx: Add "AddType application/x-httpd-php .php" to your httpd.conf file
19:35 Tom_itx i noticed that but don't recall having to do it the last time
19:35 Paradoxial Assuming you are using apache, I mean
19:35 Paradoxial Did you restart Apache?
19:35 Tom_itx apache2
19:35 Tom_itx yes
19:35 Tom_itx php5 installed
19:37 Paradoxial Can you view html files normally?
19:37 Tom_itx i'm not sure
19:37 Tom_itx i'll add that line and try it
19:37 Paradoxial Try it out real quick. It might be an issue with Firefox
19:37 Paradoxial I've had Firefox request to download html files before
19:37 Paradoxial I'm not sure if it's an issue anymore
19:38 Paradoxial Also, make sure you're loading the PHP module on httpd.conf
19:39 Paradoxial LoadModule php5_module "<php5apachex_x.dll location>"
19:39 Paradoxial And 'PHPIniDir "<location>"
19:40 Tom_itx last time i did this it wasn't that difficult
19:40 Tom_itx but i can't remember the magic trick :)
19:41 Tom_itx it may be in the ports.conf
19:42 Tom_itx it's different than debian
19:42 Paradoxial If you're in a rush, just use WAMP or XAMPP
19:42 Paradoxial It will take care of everything for you
19:42 Tom_itx i'm just testing it to write the steps down so i can remember them
19:47 Tom_itx yeah i'm pretty sure it's in the port conf
19:47 Tom_itx i can't ping it
19:55 Tom_itx i'm starting to remember now
19:55 Tom_itx i searched back in the logs
20:05 rue_shop3 arg, no parallel port on thsi machine means it cant program avrs
20:05 rue_shop3 Tom_itx, its giving you the php file isntead of running it
20:05 rue_shop3 you need to install something like apache-php-mod
20:05 Tom_itx i think i remember what we did
20:05 Tom_itx i'm gonna test it now
20:06 Tom_itx php was disabled in user directories in the php5.conf file
20:06 Tom_itx remember those lines we commented out before?
20:07 Tom_itx my eth0 isn't switching to the static address now though
20:38 rue_house :( I thought i had to stuff to finish the fresh air intake into the furnace, but I dont
20:39 rue_house eth0 is configured by /etc/network/interfaces
20:45 Tom_itx i know
20:45 Tom_itx i edited it
20:45 Tom_itx but the changes don't seem to be taking effect
20:45 Tom_itx even after restarting apache
20:48 Tom_itx and networking...
20:49 Tom_itx ok that took care of that problem
20:59 Tom_itx ok how do you remove files AND subdirectories?
21:02 Tom_itx got it
22:31 furrywolf -:- BitchX: Join to #robotics was synched in 12413.486 secs!!
22:31 furrywolf yay lag!
22:32 furrywolf that's a new record.
22:33 furrywolf got the driver's door on my new car working perfectly... one of the cables was mushed, so I tensioned the cable a bit tighter by sticking a loop of the cable through a washer then sticking a roofing nail through the loop. yes, I'm doing redneck fixes on a 7-series bmw. :P
22:33 furrywolf the passenger door needs a new exterior handle assembley, to the tune of $350... right now I'm trying a kluge using hose clamps. :)
22:40 ace4016 heh
22:41 ace4016 Cleetus done gone to the UKs
22:41 ace4016 (excuse my poor southern talk, i'm not from the real south :P)
23:06 furrywolf the handle assembley is damaged such that the stroke of the level on the back of the handle is reduced, so it doesn't pull the cable as far. If I tension the cable enough that this reduced stroke is enough to pop the latch, then the lock doesn't work since it thinks the handle is out.
23:06 furrywolf solution: attach the other end of the cable, where it attached to the latch mechanism, so the middle of the level using hose clamps, rather than to the hook at the end it's supposed to go in. this way the reduced travel of the cable still causes a full stroke of the lever. :P
23:06 furrywolf s/so the/to the
23:06 furrywolf s/level/lever
23:06 furrywolf now I'm going to drill holes in the sheet metal and use zip ties to replace broken clips on the interior cable.