#robotics Logs

May 16 2013

01:10 MrCurious i was wrong
01:11 theBear grrr, arduino in the title and the ONLY information is in videos ? i don't like that makezine at all
01:11 rue_house how did he spend $200 on that?
01:12 theBear i dunno, all i see is a black window with a F in it :)
01:12 theBear but once i got over the first word in the title, the 200 did kinda blow my mind
01:12 rue_house I like the input system he used
01:13 theBear maybe he got the most expensive off the shelf at the rc store servos he could find, and a new bike chain and new titanium sprockets ?
01:14 rue_house no compiance, tho, cruel on the servos
01:14 theBear compiance ? is that a new word you made up for counterweights ? :)
01:15 theBear and you know, he uses the a word at the start of the title, he isn't exactly smart :)
01:15 rue_house no, compliance ... oh nevermind, I'm too tired
01:15 theBear i forgive you, i couldn't sleep at all last night, tried twice :(
01:15 theBear fortunately i spent most of the last week in bed, i think that's why i'm feeling surprisingly alive
01:16 theBear not why i didn't sleep tho, i got so very very close, then something went thru my mind, and one thing led to another... i got a lot of regrets you know
01:16 orlok i've been thinking it was friday all day
01:16 orlok :-(
01:16 theBear meh, weekends don't mean quite the same thing when yer a crippled pensioner
01:16 orlok Its better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you havent
01:17 orlok also, if you see your mother, be sure to tell her SATAN SATAN SATAN
01:17 theBear heh maybe, it's more about regretting things i shoulda done better
01:17 orlok theBear: yeah, but.. jaycar open late fridays!
01:17 theBear and i like my mum, she doesn't need to hear that
01:17 theBear yeah ? that's, kinda weird actually
01:18 theBear the closest one never seems to have what i want in stock, and there isn't a half-smart salesdude in there these days :(
01:18 orlok i just need to get some DB25/9 cable ends, and i guess some resistors
01:19 theBear it is the one where i discovered that goot tips fit in their noname soldering stations they haven't had stock of tips for nationally for at least 5 years tho
01:19 theBear hmm, that sentence was bad, but i think you got it
01:20 orlok yup
01:20 orlok i put the friday tape in the tape drive too!
01:20 theBear the goot tips are good too, woulda got it probably late 2008, i do more than a little soldering and these days i run the iron way over 400c
01:20 theBear lol
01:20 theBear what you gonna put in tomorrow ?
01:21 orlok my current enclosure has 3x mini-din connectors, and i lost the mini din cables i made up
01:21 theBear used to drive me mental at work when the absent minded boss took the wrong tape home or forgot to bring it back
01:21 orlok instead of making new ones, i'm going to use a single DB25 conenctor on the enclosure
01:21 theBear very good, less plugs is better when it suits
01:22 theBear and no matter how good you are, din/minidin plugs just aren't real durable when they aren't molded
01:22 theBear moulded ?
01:22 orlok and from that DB25 i'll have 1x mini-din, 1x male DB9, and 1x female DB9
01:22 orlok so no chance of plugging the wrong thing in to the wrong device
01:22 theBear hooray
01:22 orlok unless i plug the DB9's into each other. which wont happen i hope
01:23 theBear heh, you shouldn't have said that, now you just know some idiot friend/family member will do it one day when you aren't watching :)
01:23 orlok heh
01:25 theBear it's a miracle none of my 'dodgy power cables' have killed an idiot over the years, for example recently i had a short 'extension lead' (mains) with a couple banana plugs halfway up it for measuring current draw, can't remember if they neutral or live, but still, it's a damned dangerous cable when it isn't plugged into insulated sockets and a shunt :)
01:25 orlok hmm
01:26 orlok or those "generator hookup cables"
01:26 theBear used to have the worlds deadliest battery charger cable, very similar setup but with a diode and a dc jack :) connect a low wattage lightbulb and something with a near-dead nicad and it recovers it as well as anything, course the dc jack slips out and you touch it, not cool !
01:27 theBear oh no no no, that's totally unacceptable for so many reasons, not cos it's a silly cable very similar to what got piggybacks highly controlled/VERY hard to get, but cos of all the implications of actually connecting/using it
01:27 orlok piggybacks?
01:27 theBear you know, mains plugs with a socket in the back of them
01:28 orlok like a powerboard where the plug has a socket on it?
01:29 orlok whats so bad about that? its not exposing current to bare connectors?
01:29 theBear pretty much the only way to order them now is in batches of 100, your local electrical supplier has to know you well, you have to work at a company, and have to write a nice boilerplate letter for them to forward to clipsal that promises only qualified people within the company will ever use them for the companies own equipment, and that the company is in an industry where they are 'needed', ie a lighting company (you try hooking 20-50 lights up to a
01:29 theBear 12 output dimmerrack without them)
01:30 theBear apparently among other things people made extension leads with them at both ends, for example (might be a urban myth) it is said that a lot of commercial cleaners used them so they didn't have to move the whole power cable when vacuuming big buildings, just plug into the next socket and grab the other end
01:31 theBear also, legally you can't use screws on them, only these barbed headless pins, therefore they can't be repaired, you have to cut them off or smash them, and at 4 or 5 bucks a pop, and only orderable with the above restrictions, well lets just say that i may or may not have seen them assembled with screws in recent times :)
01:32 theBear but yeah, when any idiot can still buy male plugs at a hardware store to make a 'gnerator cable', it's kinda a pointless law
01:32 theBear clipsal 463 if you wanna confirm a pic
04:18 Jak_o_Shadows sooo. How would I go about attaching a wheel to https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/104809629/gearMotor.jpg ?
04:51 Triffid_Hunter Jak_o_Shadows: you removed the gearbox?
04:51 Triffid_Hunter Jak_o_Shadows: generally you want to keep the gearbox because motors are generally too fast and not strong enough without gearing
05:28 Jak_o_Shadows Triffid_Hunter: Unfortunately, the gearbox is 1.5x the width of the whole robot
09:11 rue_house whats the ratio?
10:51 Tom_itx http://www.electronicproducts.com/Optoelectronics/Lasers/High-energy_laser_destroys_rocket_from_1-mile_away.aspx
21:35 MrCurious Tom_itx:
21:35 MrCurious Tom_itx: nice link
21:35 MrCurious i bet you could get a really really big cat to chase that laser dot
23:45 RifRaf hello, its the weekend yay
23:47 dunz0r I've got six days of no work coming, yay robot time :)
23:47 dunz0r Gonna get my thumb out of my arse and work on that RC-tank based robot I've been neglecting for so long.
23:49 RifRaf cool, did shuggins get his robot tank parts he mentioned the other day?