#robotics Logs

Aug 18 2012

00:00 Paradoxia At least, some if not most
00:00 Paradoxia I can't really think of many ceramics
00:01 katsmeow-afk they also aren't flexable
00:01 Paradoxia Do they need to be?
00:01 katsmeow-afk all plumbing installed in usa today relies on being flexable
00:01 Paradoxia That can change
00:01 katsmeow-afk good luck
00:02 Paradoxia Or, perhaps we could just start minimizing the amount of plastic piping we use
00:02 katsmeow-afk poeple are too lazy to go back to the core of installing inflexable iron-like pipes, especially brittle ceramic ones
00:02 katsmeow-afk chore
00:03 Paradoxia Well, I have come to the conclusion that nearly everything is toxic
00:03 Paradoxia You either live with it to some degree or you waste your life away trying to protect yourself
00:04 Paradoxia One must find a balance
00:04 katsmeow-afk i installed pvc pipe, that's my balance
00:06 furrywolf and I'm using a mix of copper, pvc, cpvc, black poly, and pex. :P
00:06 radoxia goes to sleep - which is probably going to lower my lifespan som
00:06 furrywolf and a bit of heater hose!
00:07 katsmeow-afk the heater hose worries me
00:08 furrywolf the diaphragm pumps both vibrate and pulsate strongly... I needed something very flexible and stretchy to dampen them.
00:09 katsmeow-afk i use the diaphram pup at the creek, 300+ ft away, and the top end of the pipe (~60ft high) is open to the air,, the centrifugal pump powers the house
00:29 tsmeow-afk climbs into her nest box for th e
00:29 katsmeow-afk zzzzzzzz
00:33 rrywolf tucks katsmeow-afk in snugly, then curls up on top of her, since it's wolfy bedtime
00:46 furrywolf http://i.ebayimg.com/t/New-Car-Cassette-Tape-Adapter-MP3-IPOD-Nano-CD-IPHONE-Black-Free-Shipping-/00/s/MTAwMFgxMDAw/$%28KGrHqV,!rEF!YbPm5hJBQG5gfpRgg~~60_57.JPG
00:47 furrywolf "The car stereo set broadcasts to convert the machine"
01:39 circuit furrywolf, have it
01:39 circuit very poor dynamic range
01:39 circuit on top of poor range of the casette player itself
02:22 theBear meh, there are better ones and worser ones... they're better than most cheap fm transmitters and they work
02:23 elektrinis I guess its best to simply ditch the cassette player and get a decent amplifier with phone-in
07:31 standoo hi
11:07 rue_house or just wire it to the output of the tape preamp
11:08 rue_house usually not hard to find
11:09 furrywolf if I ditch the stock unit, I lose the steering wheel controls, display of channel information on the instrument cluster, etc.
11:10 furrywolf it might be easier than I thought, though... seems while most of these cars are all digital, I might have the analog version, as it's an early year, and lacking the big DSP box.
11:11 furrywolf that is, things the wiring diagrams says are there, aren't, like the digital box. lol
11:12 furrywolf I bought the cheapest tape adapter on ebay, $2.19 shipped.
11:12 furrywolf I am not expecting quality...
11:14 furrywolf if I do have the all-analog version, I can probably just splice into the wires from the cd changer, and all is well.
11:14 furrywolf I can't find a wiring diagram for it, though.
11:16 furrywolf and it looks like the digital version is standard spdif, which adapters should be cheap for.
11:18 furrywolf I'm still tempted to reverse-engineer bmw's protocol and stick a carputer or something back there. :)
11:19 furrywolf http://www.reslers.de/IBUS/ or let someone else do all the work - even better!
11:20 furrywolf just plug that into my old p2 laptop, stuff it in the trunk, load it up with mp3s, enjoy.
11:21 furrywolf a few simple scripts to accept control inputs from the steering wheel and feed track info to the instrument cluster...
11:23 furrywolf too bad I don't have the satnav/backup camera screen.
12:17 theBear not like most car stereos are much better than tape quality anyway...
12:18 ShH forces theBear to listen to his 8 t
12:18 theBear 8 track is cool... i like the concept more than anything, and the cool fat tapes
12:19 furrywolf http://www.ebay.com/soc/favorites?fav=want hate... ebay... so... much...
12:19 GuShH I still have a few tapes and a working player
12:19 GuShH sounds like crap, probably the head is dirty
12:19 GuShH that's maybe why it sounds muffled.
12:20 GuShH no one will give you a cent for this stuff, so I keep it for sentimental value.
12:20 GuShH (unless it was some high end equipment, regular consumer stuff doesn't tend to have a lot of value)
12:20 furrywolf and that's literal. I see free boxes of 8-tracks at yard sales and no one takes them.
12:20 theBear yeah, that'll happen on a 30 or 40 y.old tape player <grin> probly every 8 track tape still in existance has the magnetic falling off by now too... you can bake 'em but you'd have to get the tape away from the plastic catridge
12:20 GuShH :p
12:21 GuShH It's not like those 8 tracks contain any music I like...
12:21 furrywolf re-record them. :P
12:22 GuShH For that I have an even older tape unit
12:22 furrywolf I wonder how many bits you could fit on one with suitable encoding, and use mp3.
12:22 GuShH lol
12:22 furrywolf or stick a helical head out of a vcr in one.
12:23 GuShH or get a chinese mp3 player for a few bucks...
12:23 furrywolf the tape is so wide you could get a lot of data on one that way
12:23 ShH h
12:23 GuShH I remember when mp3 players used to be expensive
12:23 GuShH in general.
12:23 furrywolf heh
12:23 furrywolf I got mine from china for $8.20 shipped
12:23 GuShH and they come with the charger, cord, etc.
12:24 GuShH although I've opened one of those chargers up and... well I wouldn't want to leave it on unattended.
12:24 GuShH on the other hand it was just as bad as an original motorola adapter I had.
12:26 furrywolf which also came from china.
12:36 GuShH malasia I think
12:36 GuShH or however you spell it.
12:37 GuShH Hmm this ebay guy wants me to sell him a 850 item which I got for 550 for 450!, I planned on going down to 500 max, there's no way I'm giving stuff away like that.
12:37 GuShH Then again these are things I have no use for, and I'd rather have the cash.
12:37 GuShH Otherwise they take up space and they see no use.
12:37 GuShH when I say "I got" I mean that's the price tag I put on them.
12:51 ShH won
12:56 rue_shop3 !time
12:56 tobbor My watch says its 10:45 Sat Aug 18 2012
12:57 ShH wonders if rue_shop3 has some snacks ar
13:03 furrywolf it seems roughly 99% of everything to do with bmw bus communications is people wanting to run windows. bleh.
13:06 furrywolf but, other than a linux driver, it seems very easy to integrate to the bus...
13:07 furrywolf http://sourceforge.net/projects/ibusmp3/ or I just need to google more.
13:08 furrywolf should I be lame and get a raspberry pi and run it on that? :P
13:12 DagoRed yes you should furrywolf
13:12 DagoRed they're back in stock!
13:13 theBear it's probably cheaper than even a broken 2ndhand laptop...
13:16 GuShH meh
13:16 GuShH furrywolf: if it saves you time and money then I guess it's not very lame
13:16 DagoRed I need to start getting into the raspberry pi.
13:17 GuShH I want a raspberry pie.
13:17 DagoRed that does sound tasty
13:17 goRed installing arch for the first
13:17 DagoRed this is hard
13:20 GuShH if it were too easy it wouldn't be worth trying :p
13:30 furrywolf seems like I can do this entirely with off-the-shelf hardware and software... just costs more than I want to spend on this car.
13:31 furrywolf although everything but the actual ibus adapter would be reusable for future projects.
13:38 GuShH lawl http://hikepro.net/images/81hw9G9f2hL._AA1500_.jpg
13:38 ShH wonders if theBear wants
13:40 furrywolf looks like your generic flashy hunting knife, with a firestarter. what's humorous about it?
13:40 furrywolf gerber is an acceptable mid-grade brand.
13:56 GuShH furrywolf: bear grylls edition
13:56 GuShH that's the humourous part.
13:56 GuShH with his wanky signature.
13:56 GuShH so cheesy
13:57 furrywolf oh. I've never seen his signature before, and other than seeing a few episodes of his suvival show on tv and deciding he was an idiot, I don't know much about him.
13:58 furrywolf it's not uncommon for celebrities to stick their name on random products...
14:05 furrywolf *thinks* only celebrity-branded item I have is a "juli ashton" strap-on harness. no idea who she is. lol
14:14 furrywolf .. wtf? the raspberry pi has no rtc.
14:43 Paradoxia furrywolf: An RTC would have driven up the price too much and not everybody would use it
14:51 theBear hehe yeah, at the price they go for a cheap rtc would have to be 1/6th or 8th of the total
14:52 furrywolf that makes it less useful for a lot of applications... anything without network access would suck, as even things like log rotation wouldn't work.
14:52 theBear i dunno about their ethos or background or if it's even a good product, but damn, it's just INSANELY cheap for a working 'computer'
14:52 furrywolf you'd have to set it manually every time you turned it on.
14:53 theBear never looked at one real close, i wonder how accessible things are if you wanted to do something like hack an rtc on... hmm, you'd think it'd have i2c or something on a header, that you can find an rtc to talk to
14:54 furrywolf for my application, I think I can make it grab the time out of the radio, but this is not a common application.
14:55 theBear heh, there's no denying it
14:58 furrywolf I'm surprised at how hackable the bmw bus is... seems like you can make the entertainment system do whatever you want, including displaying filenames on the gauge cluster, etc. :)
15:01 furrywolf bbl, non-car projects
15:36 theBear nah, i don't need no stinkin expensive gerber knife... i gots a leatherman and one nice fold up generic non-kitchen knife... i'm good
16:03 katsmeow-afk thinking like a stepper system, what inch offset should each step be at the wrist for a more human-oid-ish robot?
16:03 katsmeow-afk [15:46] <katsmeow-afk> it's 180 degree bend range
16:03 katsmeow-afk [15:46] <katsmeow-afk> is dividing it into 256 angles of placement enough?
16:03 katsmeow-afk [15:46] <katsmeow-afk> that's .078 inches each step measure at elbow, or 0.7 degrees of elbow rotation
16:03 katsmeow-afk [15:47] <katsmeow-afk> is that too coarse for a work robot?
16:03 katsmeow-afk [15:47] <katsmeow-afk> like "go get more firewood" or "lift the car battery" or "go stand over there" ?
16:03 katsmeow-afk thinking like a stepper system, what inch offset should each step be at the wrist for a more human-oid-ish robot?
16:04 katsmeow-afk i think with a wrist, the 0.078 (+/- 0.039) step can be corrected by wrist movement, yeas?
16:05 katsmeow-afk or does it need tobe more accurate?
16:05 ace4016 depends on teh arm length
16:05 rue_house katsmeow-afk, its not a bad thing, but are you aware you make a lot of refernces to robots lifting car batteries?
16:05 katsmeow-afk ace: 10 inch wrist to elbow
16:05 ace4016 because that inch step is at the radius of the stepper hub most likely; the arm will have a much larger arc length
16:05 e_house take s aminute to be exhau
16:06 katsmeow-afk ace, don't re-engineer it, i asked about step length increment at the wrist
16:06 ace4016 yea, you could probably get away with wrist movements to get more desireable movements
16:07 katsmeow-afk rue, what's lifting the car battery got to do with my question?
16:07 ace4016 hehe, wasn't reengineering; was just noting :P
16:07 katsmeow-afk ace, i think so too, 0.39 is ~ 1/2 the thickness of a traditional pcb
16:08 ace4016 actaully, i was thinking about a related solution when using steppers in 3D printers
16:08 katsmeow-afk 3D printes move in acrs?
16:08 katsmeow-afk arcs?
16:08 ace4016 basically, you can create sub-levels of movement with the steppers and some gears
16:09 tsmeow-afk
16:09 ace4016 almost like a recursive positioning system :P
16:09 ace4016 wonder if its been done already
16:09 katsmeow-afk i was trying to remve as much as possible, to eliminate backlash, slop, space, weight, etc
16:11 rue_house nothing
16:11 rue_house its just an observation
16:12 katsmeow-afk i think lifting a car battery is a good example of weight, range of movement with a weight, accuracy of placement, and stability while moving a weight in 3D space
16:13 katsmeow-afk if that can be done, then lifting a gallon jug of moojuice or a carafe of wine or a bottle of catsup will be easier
16:14 katsmeow-afk but if you design for the bottle of catsup, yo can forget about lifting the jug of milk,, and for example i sadly point to Foxy
16:15 katsmeow-afk competing qualities in the design are space, strength, range, speed, acuracy, cost, buildability, availablity of parts, depletion of the power supply, repairability, etc etc
16:17 katsmeow-afk "ok, i got this arm working with 100 motors for all axis of fingers and 50 DOF, all powered up it pulls 300 amps , melts the wiring, and sets it's skin on fire"
16:18 katsmeow-afk "uses 10,000 psi to move quickly, weighs 500lbs, has so much momentum once moving it always overshoots the mark"
18:40 katsmeow-afk http://designerthinking.com/broken-tap-hole.html
19:41 katsmeow-afk .
19:44 GuShH ..
21:47 katsmeow-afk Researchers May Have Found Amelia Earhart's Plane Debris
21:47 katsmeow-afk $2.2 Billion Earhart Expedition Yields Manmade Debris
22:15 rrywolf flops next to katsmeow-
22:17 furrywolf eww, broken taps.
22:22 furrywolf have you tried that tap dissolver stuff? I've never used it, but have heard good things about it.
22:34 furrywolf http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444375104577595811340186308.html garry kasparov arrested and beaten by russian police.
22:35 furrywolf http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8416
22:51 FreezingCold Any tips for finding scholarships? I've been having a hard time finding ones that are related to robotic
22:51 FreezingCold *robotics
22:51 furrywolf no clue. ask professors, advisors, etc at your school?
23:12 moriarty FreezingCold, where are you studying?
23:13 FreezingCold moriarty: Electro-Mechanical Engineering (Technician)
23:13 furrywolf antarctica, methinks.
23:13 FreezingCold Oh sorry, I'm studying in Ontario
23:13 moriarty FreezingCold, at a CC or?
23:13 moriarty ah right
23:13 FreezingCold Yeah, it's a community college
23:13 moriarty scholarships in Canada are very competitive from what i hear
23:14 moriarty i've a mate who is riding on a physics scholarship
23:14 moriarty but he has to meet assessments every step of the way
23:14 moriarty basically getting near perfect scores every term
23:14 FreezingCold most of them are for university level only too =/
23:14 moriarty ah right, yeah to be fair i'm not entirely familiar with CC scholarships
23:15 rrywolf went through college by working, with no scholarsh
23:15 moriarty yeah that's probably a more feasible method
23:16 moriarty you could hop over to Japan, teach English
23:16 moriarty then come back :)
23:16 FreezingCold My family is able to afford it, but a little help is never bad :)
23:17 furrywolf bah, spoiled kids.
23:17 moriarty haha
23:18 FreezingCold hey hey furrywolf, I work my ass off at school!
23:18 furrywolf I've worked for every cent I've ever gotten. (well, maybe when I was a toddler my parents took care of me, but I don't remember any of that...)
23:19 moriarty furrywolf, how are you intending to bring up your kids?
23:19 moriarty will you make them work for every cent too?
23:20 furrywolf dunno
23:20 moriarty there is value in hard work
23:20 furrywolf given the complete lack of mature, intelligent, sane women around here, that's a decision I won't have to make for a long time.
23:21 moriarty but imo kids somehow don't develop their homo economicus until they reach 18 if they're exceptional, 21 otherwise
23:30 GuShH rue_house: how's the reprap?
23:31 furrywolf argh, the neighbor's tv is cranked up again. I was hoping to go to bed early tonight. completely exhausted.
23:31 GuShH furrywolf: will have to do something about it...
23:38 furrywolf it's even louder than usaul. :(
23:39 GuShH what are your options?
23:41 furrywolf crowbar, housebrick, splitting maul, chainsaw, pipe wrench, rope, hatchet, wood chipper,...
23:42 GuShH legal options?
23:43 furrywolf none useful.
23:43 GuShH :(
23:43 moriarty drown them out in lawsuits
23:43 GuShH that takes money
23:43 GuShH I'd go for the chainsaw...
23:43 moriarty file a patent for noise making and then sue them for IP infringement
23:43 moriarty :)
23:44 moriarty you don't need money to file if you're going under the small claims court
23:44 GuShH you'd be wasting your time
23:44 GuShH they won't care.
23:45 moriarty :'(