#robotics Logs
Feb 12 2013
#robotics Calendar
00:09 shuggans rue: Havnt given up on the tank yet - just busy moving etc for the next few weeks
00:19 RifRaf Tom_itx so how far did you get with the webbotlibs?
00:27 rue_house shuggans, oh no, a move, you will never finish the robot, there will always be soemting, job, school, girlfriend, member of family dieing
00:28 rue_house sorry, this is bad
00:29 RifRaf lol rue, he has a life dude, let him live
00:29 rue_house I just think he should know that his robot will never be finished
00:30 rue_house he was so egar
00:30 RifRaf i reckon he will do it
00:32 rue_house nope, I seen this before
00:32 rue_house that project will collect dust till its too rusty to be ever brought to life
00:32 RifRaf got a servo tester, just centers, sweeps and manual control
00:33 RifRaf sick of bad servos, so can test them before use now rather than find out after
00:38 rue_house cookll
01:27 RifRaf rue_house yep is driving the servo nicely, and can sweep them very slow to see nicely wats going on with the gripper etc without needing the avr and whole arm hooked up
01:27 RifRaf does upto 4 at once
01:37 Lolina8088 RifRaf... that wasn't me asking about the sugar cane, Rue was at my house... I bought some sugar cane for the kids and we were chewing on it. Quite tasty stuff. :D
01:37 Lolina8088 He was being silly
01:38 RifRaf ah yes, have done that when younger
01:41 RifRaf it musta have been imported? must be a lil cold for cane to be growing
01:42 Lolina8088 yeah... it won't grow west of the Rockies to any great degree. Too cold up here with the water, and to dry down in California.
01:42 Lolina8088 I belive it came from China if I recall. huge black and very juicy. the kids loved it
01:43 Lolina8088 we all sat around and pretended to be pandas chewing bamboo!
01:44 RifRaf lol cool, rather exotic sugarcane by the sounds
01:46 Lolina8088 yeah... it was really neat looking, although I can't say I am an expert. It was four feet long, and the diameter was prolly... oh, ruler... the diameter is exactly (ish) one and a quarter inches. between three and four inches between each node... and it's very dark purple black and heavy
01:50 rue_bed ozy -> metric
01:51 Lolina8088 ozzy -> Osborn
01:52 rue_bed :/
01:52 Lolina8088 heh eheh ehehehe ehehe
01:52 rue_bed arg, the safety is gonna trip again..
01:52 RifRaf can do both here, grew up with imperiral a bit
01:53 Lolina8088 I was in the states for too long.
01:54 RifRaf rue_bed this servo tester has paid for itself already, being powered by the desktop supply can see current as well, all the current draws have shown me where the brackets could be slightly better in the extremes
01:54 rue_bed mmm
01:54 RifRaf a few mm here and there will make all the difference
01:55 RifRaf and safe testing, 4 gripper servos are using 30mA at rest
01:56 RifRaf can also not push the servos to there limits instead but good to be able to so will modify a bit
01:57 RifRaf to be sure to be sure
01:58 foo303 servo motors without a datasheet. need to wire. help!
01:58 o303 end of caveman ses
01:58 foo303 :p
01:58 RifRaf have been able to peak the current up to 2.01A with wild moves, so thats about max draw for 4 sg90
01:58 RifRaf +-S
01:58 rue_bed ground (black) positive 6V (red) signal (yellow)
01:59 rue_bed RifRaf,
01:59 rue_bed ?
01:59 RifRaf sorry :/
01:59 RifRaf i had it right in the longer version
01:59 foo303 rue_bed: It's 6 wires, as big as my abdomen
01:59 foo303 with this datasheet
01:59 foo303 http://pastebin.com/N8RRYTms
01:59 foo303 not datasheet, but what's written on the motor
01:59 rue_bed oh, its not a hobby servo
01:59 RifRaf dislexic, i have like 15 servos in front of me
01:59 foo303 most definitely not :p
02:00 rue_bed I cant help NOW, you need to ask when tobbor says its 5pm
02:00 rue_bed !time
02:00 tobbor My watch says its 11:52PM Mon Feb 11 2013
02:00 RifRaf wow nice
02:00 RifRaf thats like 17 hours rue, planning on a big sleep?
02:01 rue_bed I have a day job ya know
02:01 RifRaf or you have to work too
02:01 RifRaf lol
02:01 foo303 night rue :>
02:01 RifRaf but you had today off?
02:01 foo303 I have a day job too, but it's SPORTS DAY HERE!
02:01 foo303 so all of us are off
02:02 RifRaf not even dark here
02:03 RifRaf foo303 do yu have a picture of that motor?
02:04 foo303 hmm, I do somewhere, but not immediately available
02:04 foo303 it's a partial picture
02:04 foo303 but it really is about half a meter long
02:04 foo303 and it looks like a cylinder
02:05 RifRaf what are you powering it with?
02:06 foo303 There is a control panel full of contactors and it has an old servo drive, but I'm going to throw all that aside, and try to get new equipment and a power supply that fits or see if I could spot and possibly reuse the power supply in that control box
02:06 foo303 it was controlled with a PLC
02:06 foo303 so I want to throw that away and get, say, an atmega328p to control this
02:06 RifRaf k
02:06 foo303 it says 20 volt per 1000 rpm
02:07 foo303 but I have no idea what current that's meant to be at :pp
02:08 foo303 the goal is, use the servo it has for moving the axel, since it's so heavy and that motor was there before so it surely is able to move the axel, then place a stepper for horizontal motion and another for vertical motion of the router[s]
02:09 foo303 servo + encoder = accurate motion <-- assumption
02:09 RifRaf oh you are making a router, thats above me, but i do use one all day
02:10 foo303 I made a painting machine previously for class, so a router seems like a cool reincarnation of that, but this motor is depressing :(
02:10 foo303 it's too old and vague, but powerful
02:11 RifRaf yep you will do damage to yourself with a motor like that if not driven and secured right
02:12 foo303 yeah, I am considering using xbees to send commands :D
02:12 foo303 then stand way way far away while testing
02:12 foo303 if things blow up, I'll pack my stuff and leave quitely hahaha
02:13 foo303 I'm contemplating throwing it away, and getting a drive and motor from national instruments
02:13 foo303 they're expensive, but at least they are documented
02:22 RifRaf well 1 servo in my arm draws 6 times more power than any other at rest in most positions
02:22 RifRaf rue would know what one is is right away
02:24 RifRaf and i think its broken, too much jitter, need the new ones to arrive but
02:26 RifRaf http://imagebin.org/245791
02:30 SorcererX looks neat
02:32 RifRaf yep and just worked out why its all jumpy at times, one servo is weak
02:32 RifRaf plus the servo horn does not fit properly
03:33 RifRaf SorcererX if you wanna see it move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn-QCJp0EE8
03:41 Tom_itx git your rinse n repeat working yet?
03:45 RifRaf nope
03:46 RifRaf still waitin for an answer on if it works at all, but it could be my stupidity
03:46 RifRaf is docmented to work easy
03:47 RifRaf i could use a timer maybe, but that seems to be the harder way
03:47 RifRaf it would pause the servos i think
03:48 RifRaf so where did you get to Tom_itx?
03:48 RifRaf you were trying out project desinger at some point
03:48 RifRaf sesigner :/
03:48 RifRaf i give up
03:58 Tom_itx all the scheduler is, is a timer
03:58 Tom_itx 1ms pulse
03:58 Tom_itx so use that timer :)
03:59 Tom_itx i got distracted on fixing dev c++
04:00 RifRaf i think that just pauses the program
04:00 RifRaf i need it to run in the backbround
04:00 Tom_itx it's not gonna run in parallel
04:00 Tom_itx sonar takes quite a bit of time
04:01 Tom_itx further away the longer it takes
04:01 RifRaf yep thats why i am trying to slow it down
04:01 RifRaf too many pulse were freezing thing up
04:02 Tom_itx hide it inside an if x = 200 loop and increment x
04:02 Tom_itx reset x inside the sonar code
04:02 Tom_itx or just after it
04:02 Tom_itx in the loop
04:08 Tom_itx http://www.geology.smu.edu/~dpa-www/robots/sr04/sr04.html
04:08 Tom_itx he runs a scheduler type software design on that one
04:11 Tom_itx http://geology.heroy.smu.edu/~dpa-www/robo/subsumption/
04:12 Tom_itx read over that
15:07 Ademan_ This is a cross post from #electronics but I'm not hopeful it's going to get attention there: In this circuit http://www.seattlerobotics.org/encoder/200210/servoex/ServoExcerciser.htm C1 is described as charging through R2, R6, R1, which makes sense, but then it says it discharges through R1, what causes it to discharge? I assume it has something to do with the threshold and trigger voltages on that part of the 556 but I don't quit
15:13 Ademan_ Hrm I think I'm starting to understand it a bit better via the circuits described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC but I'll be back after work for more questions
17:57 DanFrederiksen I'm banned from this channel for saying stepper motors suck and all serious applications should of course use servo motors :)
17:57 DanFrederiksen truth is not always welcome
19:21 rue_house no you were banned for being an ass :)
19:28 DanFrederiksen only in the eyes of those who like stepper motors and don't like to hear the truth about htem
19:28 DanFrederiksen it was blasphemy in the house of the stepper motors
19:29 Tom_itx you still have a chip?
19:29 DanFrederiksen I'm still banned so don't pretend I'm being unreasonable
19:29 Tom_itx you're here
19:30 DanFrederiksen by server accident
19:30 DanFrederiksen if I leave I can't rejoin
19:33 Tom_itx how's your car coming along?
19:34 DanFrederiksen I'm not working on a car. You wouldn't be asking out of petty spite would you?
19:34 Tom_itx nope
19:34 Tom_itx i'm way over that
19:34 Tom_itx been rather pleasant in here
19:35 DanFrederiksen of course you are. if you unban me I can tell you about it
19:36 DanFrederiksen that's what I thought
19:36 DanFrederiksen the chip is all yours
19:37 GargantuaSauce everyone is at fault but you
19:37 GargantuaSauce wake up sheeple
19:37 Tom_itx this is why you aren't allowed back
19:37 DanFrederiksen of course it is
19:37 Tom_itx starting off with grudges etc
19:37 DanFrederiksen if you object to being banned you deserve being banned
19:37 DanFrederiksen fine logic
19:38 Jak_o_Shadows YOU HAD TO DO IT Gargantuasauce DIDN'T YOU! THE SHEEPLE IS COMING
19:38 rgantuaSauce grabs the sh
19:39 Tom_itx you convince 5 ppl to pm me to let you back and i will
19:39 Tom_itx let the channel decide
19:39 DanFrederiksen is that how it works. you say stepper motors are obviously inferior to servo motors and you need 5 people to vouch for you to get back
19:40 Tom_itx it has nothing to do with steppers
19:40 DanFrederiksen that is why I was banned. whether you want to admit it or not
19:40 Tom_itx and i can't even believe you're still on that
19:40 Tom_itx that may have been the straw
19:40 DanFrederiksen because I'm still banned for it shithead
19:41 Tom_itx from what i can tell, for good reason
19:41 DanFrederiksen your telling ability leaves much to be desired
19:41 Tom_itx says one
19:41 DanFrederiksen says the one truth
19:44 GargantuaSauce lol
19:45 Jak_o_Shadows Just wondering, if you're banned, how are you talking?
19:45 DanFrederiksen the irc server system is in many ways incompetent. sometimes the filters aren't applied
19:46 DanFrederiksen don't know how it works
19:46 DanFrederiksen maybe God letting a little light into the darkness once in a while
19:46 DanFrederiksen where idiotic decisions would otherwise be permanent
19:48 DanFrederiksen the lack of servo motor products and the reliance on the crappy principle stepper motors is one of the key reasons that this channel and all other DIY robotics has never seen a robotics project
19:48 rue_house dude just throw an avr at it, done. I do it all the time
19:48 rue_house if you know how to do something, doing it isn't aporblem
19:48 GargantuaSauce what constitutes a "robotics project"
19:49 rue_house computerized electromechanical device
19:49 DanFrederiksen GargantuaSauce, articulated limbs
19:49 DanFrederiksen not toys based on rc servos
19:49 DanFrederiksen power, speed
19:49 rue_house DanFrederiksen, have you done stepper control ever?
19:49 GargantuaSauce yes diy would work better if expensive shit wasn't so expensive
19:49 GargantuaSauce congratulations on making this amazing deduction
19:49 DanFrederiksen rue_house, please don't pretend that I don't know what it is
19:49 GargantuaSauce you're truly a revolutionary in this field
19:50 rue_house DanFrederiksen, your famous for talking about things you have no experiance with
19:50 DanFrederiksen GargantuaSauce, there is no reason servo systems should be expensive
19:50 GargantuaSauce so make a cheap one
19:50 GargantuaSauce i will buy your stock
19:50 rue_house from what you have said, you have never made a servo system, so I'm just asking if you have ever made a positioning system with steppers
19:51 rue_house my servos are, arguably at worst, $20
19:51 GargantuaSauce you seem to know your stuff so why are you not carrying these game-changing tasks out
19:51 DanFrederiksen GargantuaSauce, I'm an intelligent person that sees many things wrong with this world. it's a common suggestion by the thoughtless and obtuse that I should just fix everything myself instead of trying to reach you the dead
19:51 rue_house but ha not done any of the thigns he talks about
19:52 rue_house matter a fact, there are a number of things he will not build because they cannot be built to his level of perfection
19:52 rue_house which is most of the reason he dosn't build ANYTHING, the real world just makes it too imerfect for him
19:52 DanFrederiksen rue_house, I've done a CNC based on steppers. and it sucked so hard because the crappy steppers couldn't be relied on to keep track. and even if I hadn't I am able to understand things without having done them. I'm intelligent
19:53 rue_house where as the rest of us, who actually build things, learn how to deal with real world deviations and have a lot of success doing so
19:53 rue_house so you used steppers that were too small and underdriven and didn't figure out how to solve it
19:53 GargantuaSauce and with open loop control
19:54 DanFrederiksen rue_house, oversizing a crappy motortype is not an intelligent solution
19:54 Tom_itx my stepper system works very well
19:54 rue_house heh
19:54 rue_house so does mine, I have 2:1 redction on them all
19:54 rue_house and I dont drive them too fast,
19:54 Tom_itx mine are direct drive but they work very well
19:55 DanFrederiksen because they carry no load
19:55 rue_house (mine are smaller motors than toms)
19:55 Tom_itx they are not _overloaded_
19:55 rue_house DanFrederiksen, no, toms is a full fledged cnc
19:55 DanFrederiksen sigh
19:55 Tom_itx i've got 7A drivers behind them
19:55 rue_house my machine exerts load, enough to snap off dull drill bits
19:55 Tom_itx even though i'm not using them to their full ability
19:56 DanFrederiksen does Honda use steppers for Asimo?
19:56 rue_house steppers are suitable for some applications and not others
19:56 DanFrederiksen steppers are always shit and vastly outclassed by servo motors
19:56 DanFrederiksen that is spectacularly obvious
19:56 rue_house no motor type is applicable for all applications
19:57 DanFrederiksen but you have your mindless religions
19:57 DanFrederiksen sleeping on the ice
19:57 DanFrederiksen sooner douse yourself in gasoline and light fire than listen to reason
19:57 rue_house I'm not 100% for steppers
19:57 DanFrederiksen hehe
19:57 rue_house you havn't seen my hexapod that uses vending machine gearmotors controlled by avrs
19:58 rue_house 4 loops per mega32
19:58 rue_house steppers are not the solution to everything
19:58 DanFrederiksen steppers shouldn't exist
19:58 rue_house steppers make it easier to some things
19:58 Tom_itx rue_house, why are you playing into his game?
19:59 DanFrederiksen the control can be simpler sure. but that's worthless when the result is crap
19:59 GargantuaSauce and what about the cases in which it isn't?
19:59 Tom_itx he's an opinionated ass that feels he is superior to eveyrone else
19:59 rue_house hmm
19:59 rue_house yea
19:59 GargantuaSauce those where it is both cheap and effective?
19:59 GargantuaSauce hundreds of those applications exist
20:00 rue_house is that a grounds to kickban him, we SHOULD have the oppinion of someone without ops
20:00 DanFrederiksen GargantuaSauce, would it really be more expensive with servos?
20:00 Tom_itx i have already rue_house
20:00 rue_house ok
20:00 Tom_itx and i asked him to have 5 pm to let him stay and so far NOBODY has
20:00 GargantuaSauce maybe not if the industry magically bent to your whims
20:01 GargantuaSauce but clearly you're not very effective at speaking reason into a dead unintelligent world
20:01 DanFrederiksen Tom_itx, I don't jump through your idiotic hoops
20:01 Tom_itx they are not my hoops
20:01 DanFrederiksen of course not
20:01 -!- DanFrederiksen was kicked from #robotics by rue_house!~rue@24-207-103-226.eastlink.ca [DanFrederiksen]
20:01 rue_house you forgot that part
20:01 GargantuaSauce i cant belive i bit
20:01 Tom_itx woops
20:01 GargantuaSauce every goddamn time...
20:02 Tom_itx at least it's on you this time :)
20:02 rue_house whatever
20:02 GargantuaSauce it always is
20:02 GargantuaSauce i always have the choice to just ignore his illogic championships
20:02 rue_house GargantuaSauce, sorry, were you for or against that action?
20:02 GargantuaSauce and i fail 2 times out of 3
20:03 Tom_itx rue_house, did you see i got dev c++ working on the other pc?
20:03 GargantuaSauce uh
20:03 Tom_itx he's pm'n me now
20:03 rue_house Tom_itx, no, most cool!
20:03 Tom_itx rif linked me a page about a setting
20:03 rue_house haha, your an op too :)
20:03 GargantuaSauce i am only against the action in that i feel it wasn't effective and pervasive enough
20:03 Tom_itx some lib thing
20:03 Tom_itx i am more than op
20:04 rue_house gee, I havn't even put on my hat in a LONG time
20:04 rue_house while I have it on...
20:04 Tom_itx i am SUPER OP! ... he says as he falls off the tall building plummeting to earth
20:04 e_house slides a pillow
20:04 e_house puts a cup of water o
20:15 GargantuaSauce my head still hurts from his arguments
20:15 GargantuaSauce i can't fathom the concept of somebody believing their word is complete and infallible truth
20:15 GargantuaSauce it boggles the mind
20:16 rue_house yea
20:17 GargantuaSauce and i just HAVE to juxtapose these two
20:18 GargantuaSauce [21:33:20] <DanFrederiksen> maybe God letting a little light into the darkness once in a while
20:18 GargantuaSauce [21:44:05] <DanFrederiksen> but you have your mindless religions
20:18 GargantuaSauce aaaaaaahhhh my head
20:18 GargantuaSauce ok time to not talk about this anymore
20:18 GargantuaSauce so about them robots
20:19 rue_house I'm gonna write some hobby servo vontrol code
20:19 rue_house I came up with an awesome idea
20:19 rue_house make the highest resolution timer I can for 1ms
20:20 rue_house and to a whole 1ms pulse before the timed pulse
20:20 rue_house which keeps the min pulse and still provides the resolution
20:20 rue_house I think I can get 12 bits or so
20:20 GargantuaSauce or you could graduate from quaint little AVRs :)
20:21 GargantuaSauce but yes that is a good idea, no sense wasting counted cycles on constant times
20:22 GargantuaSauce only problem is that for a lot of servos you want to be able to go past the 1-2ms range
20:22 GargantuaSauce and it depends on the servo so making it constant is a problem
20:22 rue_house yes, that wouldn't be a problem with this
20:22 rue_house there would be a fixed pre-cycle
20:22 GargantuaSauce k then
20:24 rue_house my target interest is hooking it up to a 4017 to run multiple servos
20:27 Tom_itx i bet the xmega timers would handle them very will
20:27 Tom_itx they have quite the event system i hear
20:31 GargantuaSauce how would you use a counter to do it?
20:36 rue_shop2 RifRaf, did you catch some of the rest of the pointer stuff me and tom did?
20:36 rue_shop2 I know you cant go now
20:50 Tom_itx rue_shop2,
20:50 Tom_itx what are you working on this evening?
20:52 Tom_itx wanna carry on with more c?
20:56 rue_house sure
20:56 rue_house I'm playing with some serial
20:58 rue_shop2 serial input this time
20:58 Tom_itx carry on. i may rest a bit
20:58 rue_shop2 I need a working subsystem for coding kats adc
20:59 Tom_itx i got read if you want it
20:59 Tom_itx http://tom-itx.dyndns.org:81/~webpage/avr/rs232_rx_test/
21:00 rue_shop2 no
21:00 rue_shop2 synchronous
21:00 rue_shop2 importing 16 bits from 2 74ls166
21:00 Tom_itx not spi?
21:00 rue_shop2 nope
21:01 Jak_o_Shadows1 got 2000 resistors just then.
21:02 rue_shop2 when inhaled or sneezed?
21:02 Jak_o_Shadows1 through the hole
21:03 Tom_itx those are thru the hole smt
21:03 e_shop2 looks up, "wait, where am
21:05 rue_shop2 I think, over the course of 15 years I can use up most of my supply of ttl chips
23:12 Ademan can't find the duty cycle for these MG996R servos for the life of me
23:22 rue_house hobby servos?
23:28 Ademan yeah
23:29 rue_house do you mean the control pulse shape or the overall wrokload the servo can take
23:29 Ademan pulse shape, sorry
23:30 rue_house its standard
23:30 rue_house !assist tutorials/
23:30 tobbor Possibly http://eds.dyndns.org/~ircjunk/tutorials/
23:30 rue_house just a sec
23:32 Ademan http://web.archive.org/web/20101128115959/http://seattlerobotics.org/encoder/200210/servoex/schematic.gif I've put this together to try to test the servo, but it only moves when I first connect the power. I assume I've made a mistake somewhere but heck if I can find it
23:32 rue_house I have a good tutorial
23:33 rue_house http://eds.dyndns.org/~ircjunk/tutorials/elex/hobbyservo/servo101.html
23:33 rue_house Ademan, ^^^ read over that
23:34 Ademan thanks rue_house
23:37 rue_house RifRaf, http://hackaday.com/2013/02/12/automatic-custom-eagle-schematics/ <-- there is a new library out
23:45 RifRaf cool, on me way home now, will check then
23:46 Ademan rue_house: hrm, so 50hz is likely to be the magic number?
23:46 rue_house no, 20ms ;)