#robotics Logs

Sep 03 2014

00:00 FatPanda I am sitting on it.
00:00 rue_more mmmm 1000 7.5k resistors
00:01 fluffywolf I'm not sure I've ever needed a 7.5k...
00:02 fluffywolf bbl, wolfy bedtime
00:02 FatPanda combine them
00:02 FatPanda 15, 22,30.37.45....
00:03 FatPanda dont know if that would be reasonable. in series
00:18 rue_more I did, and would you beleive it, in my WHOLE SHOP I could only find 2?
00:20 rue_more my options were 10 for $1, 20 for $2.30, 50 for $5, 100 for $5 or 1000 for $5
00:20 rue_more pricing from china still confuses me
00:22 rue_more how many do you want? hoever many you order it will be $5
03:33 deshipu in that case I want all of them
03:34 deshipu a new battery came \o/
03:34 deshipu now I just need to remove the xt60 plug from it
03:35 deshipu or should I just solder the cables inside the plug, hmm
09:17 rue_more use it or lose it
09:20 GargantuaSauce hardwiring a battery, especially a lipo, seems like a pretty bad idea
09:28 deshipu GargantuaSauce: it's cables to another type of plug
09:28 deshipu GargantuaSauce: so not really hardwiring
09:28 GargantuaSauce ah ok
09:29 deshipu I soldered them to the lipo directly though
09:29 deshipu can use the original cable for charging
09:29 GargantuaSauce yeah probably a better choice as long as you don't accidentally put it into arc welder mode :)
09:30 deshipu "accidentally"
09:30 deshipu I liked the old one better, though, it had some electronics for shorting protection
09:30 deshipu oh well
09:31 deshipu this one is 2.2Ah, so should last for a while
12:45 mulvane For a science fair project, me and my son are delving into electronics design, code, manufacturing of design, and a few other things. But he wants to add cameras to his design. I'm looking for something that is fairly cheap, does not require very powerful hardware to run some small LCDs (2), and capture 2 cameras (640x480 max).
12:51 GargantuaSauce 2 lcds with different images?
12:51 mulvane Yeah
12:52 GargantuaSauce 2 separate systems would be the easiest but there are some single board computers that can drive two displays
12:52 GargantuaSauce the cubieboard has hdmi and also lvds for example
12:52 mulvane We are building a table top artillery set, and using SNES controllers as the control method. But he wants the field hidden and require camera aiming.
12:52 mulvane Was looking fr smething more kit like that would require building it.
12:52 GargantuaSauce oh might be easiest to just go with an analog video setup then
12:53 mulvane Yeah. Want this to be a fun learning experience.. Not just a "Hey, here is this part, glue it here".
12:53 GargantuaSauce well as far as rolling your own systems goes the sky is the limit so you have to draw the line somewhere obviously
12:54 mulvane Yeah. Just looking for a camera mount that will provide something like spotter goggles that is independent of the firing arm.
12:55 mulvane 320x240 on small LCDs would be perfect for this.
12:55 mulvane I've just never done anything that needed this so kind of at a loss where to start.
12:55 GargantuaSauce have you selected an embedded platform yet
12:56 mulvane Using AVR for all the firing and control of the cannon mount.
12:56 deshipu a pentium 100, embedded in concrete ;)
12:56 GargantuaSauce well you can get pretty cheap pan+tilt mounts for a pair of hobby servos
12:57 deshipu or make them
12:57 mulvane We are building our own pan/tilts already. For this, just need pan so we can see all the field. My thought was just a cheap camera CMOS chip on a mount and push that to a LCD.
12:57 GargantuaSauce yeah just get one with composite output
12:59 mulvane Cool. Thanks. Just trying to fish ideas. He has a few months. But I need to make sure to have time to help him source parts.
13:03 GargantuaSauce i would recommend using something that is not an nes controller
13:03 GargantuaSauce joysticks are much nicer to control stuff like that with
13:04 mulvane Yeah, with a hat for the camera would be great. If I could find some with an old serial interface that would be ideal.
13:05 GargantuaSauce ugh ebay is down
13:06 GargantuaSauce http://www.dx.com/p/genuine-replacement-xbox-360-controller-3d-joystick-module-103078 you can use these with the microcontroller's adc
13:06 GargantuaSauce i love these things
13:08 mulvane Why not just use a 360 controller if I go that route?
13:09 deshipu one plan I have is a rpi robot with a webcam on 2-servo gimbal, controlled with a wireless game pad
13:10 mulvane This is going to be in a school on display. Sadly, I have to make it where they can't walk off with things like controllers.
13:10 deshipu running pygame headless
13:10 GargantuaSauce yeah you could use game controllers if you're willing to deal with the interfacing
13:10 deshipu rpi has usb :)
13:10 mulvane nes/snes controllers are easy as hell to work with. Just need a shift register.
13:11 GargantuaSauce or the microcontroller's spi peripheral
13:11 mulvane Me and him have already settled on 8 bit micros for all the control stuff.
13:12 mulvane Then again, I could use the old PS2 controllers.
13:13 GargantuaSauce a bluetooth host module would do for ps3 controllers i think
13:13 GargantuaSauce anyway yeah lots of options
13:14 mulvane Probably. But I have tons of nes/snes controllers and PS2 controllers.
13:14 deshipu GargantuaSauce: ps3 controllers have a horrible protocol
13:14 deshipu GargantuaSauce: if you mean the sixaxis
13:15 deshipu GargantuaSauce: I have one that I can't use, because the crappy driver on linux can only deal with the original one
13:15 GargantuaSauce oh yeah we had this conversation and i forgot
14:16 jarhed Evenin'
14:17 jarhed I've got a bit of an issue with a dynamixel xl-320. Anyone fiddled with them before?
18:25 Solarlux Hello all
18:29 GargantuaSauce hi
18:43 Solarlux Anyone have expierence with industral robots?
18:46 GargantuaSauce we are mostly hobbyists but can probably entertain your line of questioning anyway
18:46 Solarlux Heh
18:47 Solarlux I want to learn something about industral robots
18:48 GargantuaSauce well a picture is worth a thousand words....and a video is 24 pictures per second!
18:48 GargantuaSauce https://www.youtube.com/user/KukaRobotGroup/videos
22:46 rue_shop3 wooh
22:46 rue_shop3 fire wood and garden work done!
22:46 rue_shop3 for today
22:47 rue_shop3 and I got my + laser module!
22:47 rue_shop3 now i can pinpoint things!
22:50 Tom_itx did you ever get hot water pumping thru your shop floor?
22:51 rue_shop3 yea
22:51 Tom_itx no leaks?
22:51 rue_shop3 but it requires 1500W continious for 3 days to bring the temp up the same as an electric oil heater at 300w for 3 hours
22:51 rue_shop3 no leaks
22:52 Tom_itx not using it then?
22:52 rue_shop3 I think I didn't insulate it in a way that works
22:52 rue_shop3 na
22:52 rue_shop3 which sucks
22:56 rue_shop3 arg, I cant focus
22:57 rue_shop3 Tom_itx, can you easily search zlog?
22:59 fluffywolf I got nothing done today at all.
22:59 fluffywolf I got no sleep last night, and was utterly useless today.
22:59 rue_shop3 did you take pictures?
23:00 rue_shop3 cmon, we need proof
23:00 fluffywolf ?
23:00 rue_shop3 of the nothing you got done
23:00 rue_shop3 take pics of your days progress
23:01 fluffywolf sure, let me find a picture of what I got done.
23:01 rue_shop3 hmm, who was I suppose to make the cut-n-nut for :/
23:01 rue_shop3 armyofevilrobot1, casting, how busy are you two to swing by and check out the setup?
23:02 fluffywolf http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Transparent.gif there's what I got done today.
23:02 fluffywolf in all its glory.
23:02 rue_shop3 heh
23:02 rue_shop3 atleast its got a gigapixel image
23:03 rue_shop3 I hate it when people do that
23:03 fluffywolf it's 1 pixel. :P
23:03 fluffywolf it's not gigapixel, it's monopixel.
23:03 rue_shop3 is it square or rectangular?
23:03 fluffywolf that's up to you.
23:03 fluffywolf it's also up to you whether it contains an invisible pink unicorn or not.
23:04 rue_shop3 pink... huh
23:05 rue_shop3 I have 1 hour to get something done in my shop
23:05 rue_shop3 maybe I should tear off some of the overload baords from buddyIII
23:07 fluffywolf speaking of robots, nasa just gave opportunity two more years of funding.
23:09 rue_shop3 opportunity?
23:10 fluffywolf mars rover
23:10 fluffywolf been running for over ten years now
23:14 fluffywolf bbl, wolfy bedtime
23:20 rue_shop3 I thought it got stuck after 2 months, which was 400% longer than they thought it would run for
23:20 fluffywolf no, you're thinking of something else.
23:21 fluffywolf opportunity is still in close to perfect health more than ten years and 25 miles of roving later
23:21 fluffywolf the current most annoying problem is one of the flash chips has been tossing up write errors, so they've spent the last week downloading the entire memory instead of driving/sciencing, in preparation to reformat and do a bad block check.
23:21 rue_shop3 wait, it landed 10 years ago?
23:22 rue_shop3 2004?
23:22 fluffywolf yes
23:22 rue_shop3 it was the second one to land after some toot mixed up metric and imerial units and pummled the first one into the surface?
23:23 fluffywolf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_%28rover%29
23:23 fluffywolf Opportunity landed on Mars' Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004
23:24 fluffywolf bbl, sleep
23:24 rue_shop3 you keep saying your gonna but I dont see it happeneing!!
23:24 rue_shop3 take picstures!
23:29 rue_shop3 I wonder how I should make the disc for the disc sander