#robotics Logs

Jul 26 2018

12:19 AM rue_shop3: http://www.howardelectronics.com/images/thumbnails/2500/2500/detailed/0/IR860.jpg
12:23 AM rue_shop3: anyone know whats holding that board?
12:23 AM rue_shop3: is it just sitting there?
12:24 AM mrdata: notice the sliders and knobs to tighten
12:24 AM mrdata: if you blow on it with a lot of air, it wont fly off
12:25 AM mrdata: (even from underneath)
12:29 AM rue_shop3: yea, but I cant see how those grab it
12:29 AM rue_shop3: or if they do
12:43 AM mrdata: they do
12:43 AM mrdata: each finger has a little shelf
12:43 AM rue_shop3: _-----
12:43 AM rue_shop3: ?
12:43 AM mrdata: it is secured by pressure from the side
12:44 AM rue_shop3: oh
12:44 AM rue_shop3: ]____
12:46 AM rue_shop3: I got a small waffle iron yesterday
12:46 AM rue_shop3: it was just $3 :)
12:46 AM rue_shop3: its rectangular and flat
12:57 AM z64555: "N is for nanometer"
12:57 AM z64555: no it's not, its for Newtons
12:57 AM z64555: 'n' is for nano
12:57 AM z64555: :P
12:58 AM mrdata: nm is nanometer
12:59 AM rue_shop3: what O for?
01:04 AM mrdata: ??
01:04 AM mrdata: in what context
01:07 AM rue_shop3: in the context of N, what is O?
01:08 AM mrdata: where do you see that
01:08 AM mrdata: show me the image
01:09 AM mrdata: N is too short to be a context. there is no such thing as the context N
01:09 AM mrdata: if N were a unit, that could be a context
01:10 AM mrdata: if N were nitrogen, that would be a context
01:11 AM mrdata: N is just a single symbol
01:13 AM rue_shop3: If you ask a question, you must wait for the answer. | http://tom-itx.no-ip.biz:81/~webpage/index.php | N is for nanometer.
01:14 AM mrdata: N cannot be for nanometer
01:15 AM rue_shop3: its the nano in nanometer
01:15 AM rue_shop3: awe
01:15 AM rue_shop3: so, whats O
01:15 AM mrdata: n can be the nano in nanometer
01:15 AM mrdata: but N, no
01:16 AM mrdata: i will not allow it
01:16 AM rue_shop3: if you stop drawing such strict rules it can be for anything
01:16 AM mrdata: which brings us back to N is too short to be a context
01:16 AM rue_shop3: I want to move on to O
01:17 AM rue_shop3: N is giving me too much flack
01:17 AM mrdata: the context is the surrounding text
01:17 AM mrdata: if the only text you see is NO
01:17 AM rue_shop3: "O is for"
01:17 AM mrdata: then i interpret that as either nitric oxide, or the word no, in caps
01:18 AM rue_shop3: ... I'm managing to not work on the signal generator....
01:18 AM mrdata: A is for Abigail, who fell down the drain,... etc
01:18 AM mrdata: B is for Betsy, who drives us insane
01:18 AM rue_shop3: A is for android
01:18 AM rue_shop3: gee, get your context man
01:19 AM rue_shop3: the next item on the list (technically the second item) is "get pcb plotter working again)
01:20 AM rue_shop3: /)/"/
01:22 AM rue_shop3: haha! I have a suntan!.... oh wait.... left arm only,.... its from welding....
01:22 AM rue_shop3: so... yes, ok, it starts just below my wrist where the glove is...
01:24 AM rue_shop3: I wanted to get all kinds of things done on my holiday this week, I'm so scattered its just being useless
01:32 AM rue_shop3: hmm
01:32 AM rue_shop3: maybe I should start with an esp8266 for a replacement controller in the tea machine
01:32 AM rue_shop3: that would help push my boundries a bit
01:32 AM rue_shop3: I suppose I should be able to get something with a webpage to turn the element on and off for a simple start
01:32 AM rue_shop3: or just serve a webpage
01:53 AM veverak: or just boot
01:56 AM rue_shop3: getting it to push a webpage is easy
01:56 AM rue_shop3: I think getting params back from clicks isn't too bad
01:57 AM rue_shop3: I just managed to find the reverse engineered pinout of the controller connector for the coffeepot
01:57 AM rue_shop3: I'm well on my way to tea!
01:57 AM rue_shop3: its funny how you people cycle
01:59 AM rue_shop3: if you had the option to change your past, can you think of anything good to change?
01:59 AM veverak: nope
01:59 AM veverak: every good experience is good experience and every bad experience is good lesson
02:02 AM rue_shop3: it took me like 30 years to get the stuff I need
02:02 AM rue_shop3: to do the things I just wanted to do
02:09 AM LucaVanzin: Hello. Did someone use the amazing Sharp7 from Davide Nardella to interface to a S7-1200 Siemens PLC?
02:09 AM rue_shop3: nope
02:10 AM LucaVanzin: Hello rue_shop3 .
02:10 AM rue_shop3: I'm alive, and I'm real
02:12 AM LucaVanzin: Good to hear that rue_shop3 :)
02:13 AM veverak: LucaVanzin: he believes that, do not tell him that he is a robot!
02:13 AM rue_shop3: its a win/win, I'm trying to become a robot anyhow
02:14 AM rue_shop3: eating is a bad habbit that leads to other time-wasting activities, and sleep is just inefficiency
02:14 AM LucaVanzin: veverak, Ok, I will not mind to perturb any situation :)
02:15 AM veverak: sleeping is actually wise balancing of load of the main CPU
02:15 AM veverak: it collects data during the day and processes them at night
02:16 AM LucaVanzin: background worker ;p
02:40 AM rue_shop3: the esp8266 fits in the control box for the coffeemaker
02:41 AM rue_shop3: I need to figure out the polarity of the element_on signal, and see if 3.3V is enough to control the relay
02:41 AM rue_shop3: signal
02:41 AM rue_shop3: it would help if I weren't recontemplating my existance
02:41 AM rue_shop3: awefull distracting
02:57 AM LucaVanzin: rue_shop3, why don't you add a transistor? relay spykes when releasing the coil could be a problem for the controller pin.
02:58 AM LucaVanzin: and of course a freewheeling diode
10:11 AM dravine is now known as krunk
12:41 PM rue_: its got a relay driver, I dont know if it'll trigger at 3V
01:22 PM Tom_shop: squaring blocks today
02:26 PM rue_shop3: ok, the plotter is wired to a computer
02:26 PM rue_shop3: now to get the data from A to B
02:27 PM theBear: "do you think you can wire all this stuff together professor ?" "i'm a scientist... i can wire ANYTHING up to ANYTHING !!!"
02:28 PM veverak: :D
02:29 PM rue_shop3: theBear, how are you with netcat?
02:31 PM theBear: umm, netcat, erm, better with netstat, i know maybe 2 or 3 cmdline options for that <grin>
02:31 PM theBear: watcha tryin to do ?
02:32 PM theBear: what kinda data (or really physical port in this case probly) is the plotter ?
02:32 PM rue_shop3: well, computer A has software, and thinks it has a serial plotter
02:32 PM rue_shop3: computer B has a serial port and a network connection
02:32 PM rue_shop3: computer C has a network connection and a parallel port
02:32 PM rue_shop3: plotter has a parallel port
02:33 PM rue_shop3: thankfully, its a unidirectional data path
02:33 PM theBear: hmm.... does the parallel plotter expect the same bytes of data as the serial software at the first end ?
02:33 PM rue_shop3: yes
02:33 PM theBear: that's good then, well, that's something :)
02:34 PM theBear: ummm..... surely you don't need B in this day and age ? i bet someone good with nc and a handful of other "modern" tricks would know fer sure <grin>
02:35 PM rue_shop3: yes because A is a 6.22 dos machine
02:35 PM theBear: i feel like there should be a way involving ssh with a port forward or two as the from A to C (perhaps via B, who knows)
02:35 PM theBear: but it been a while
02:35 PM theBear: ooh, nice
02:35 PM rue_shop3: cause nobody has a) written better software since b) maintained hpgl support for real plotters
02:35 PM theBear: you checked that something like dosemu and/or vmware or similar can't do the dos part ?
02:35 PM rue_shop3: not worth the pain
02:36 PM theBear: still better than programming a cnc machine in italian engineers shorthand on a physical panel with just a little number keypad and some cryptic looking other buttons here and there :-)
02:36 PM rue_shop3: ooo first problem, what network port to use
02:37 PM theBear: hmm... scanner... 3 movies were made, all involved exploding some heads via the power of the mind, erm, very 80's horror, herm, surely that's enough things to grab 4 digits outta
02:37 PM theBear: hmmm.... howbout just running a REALLY long cable ? old slow serial and/or parallel is trivial to run stupid distances compared to what we used to dealing with last decade or two
02:38 PM theBear: ooh, if you got landlines, you can use modems for the serial link <grin>
02:38 PM theBear: 40 or 60 volt battery and a couple old hayes bangers, private partyline
02:38 PM rue_shop3: there was a thought to run cable tray all the way round the shop cieling
02:39 PM rue_shop3: printer 515/tcp spooler # line printer spooler
02:39 PM rue_shop3: that seems like a number to use
02:39 PM theBear: sidenote: all these ideas are far from the modern easy non-physical way to do such things
02:39 PM theBear: you still running xinetd/equiv for those ports/services to automagic ?
02:39 PM theBear: also, a guy like you no doubt has 10's of those little 415mhz serial rf boards lying around the place?
02:40 PM rue_shop3: mostly, I can control them and they work
02:40 PM theBear: at least wireless dumb serial-via-rf is kinda modern-ish tech
02:40 PM rue_shop3: I think mine are 315Mhz
02:40 PM theBear: i feel like stty or rtty or one of those text-terminal things can do some net-serial kinda tricks '
02:40 PM rue_shop3: I dont want to connecto the plotter directly to the computer A anyhow
02:41 PM rue_shop3: there are no spoolers and you have to wait for the print to finish before you can use the computer again
02:41 PM rue_shop3: so if computer B or C spools, yay.
02:41 PM theBear: tbh, i don't think that less-mhz is less-good in this case, just so long as you got a pair of the same mhz ballpoark :)
02:42 PM theBear: hmm.... something like a not-fancy avr is probly quite good at things like spooling that amount of data
02:42 PM theBear: if that helps, also trivial to ser<>parallel too if yer in the mood
02:42 PM rue_shop3: na, some of the plots are pretty big files
02:42 PM rue_shop3: it cant do arcs, so there are a LOT of line segments
02:43 PM rue_shop4: ok "freebee6" is the computer...
02:43 PM * theBear never acclimatised to these modern multi-process kernel-supervised memory-managed os's and how to program properly to take advantage of all that stuff... therefore avr's running C is a lot like how we programmed single-process stuff ya know, back when we were on the forefront of programming technology and skills :)
02:43 PM rue_shop3: so I push ttS1 to port 516 of freebee6
02:44 PM rue_shop3: ok, then, computer B "freebee6" needs to do a netcat recieve...
02:45 PM theBear: tehre's a page in the gentoo wiki land, something like "fast file copying" in the title, that has a bunch of handy both-ends examples including i pretty sure a netcat pair or two... i use it as my personal cheat-sheet for a lotta non-file-copying things that it happens to example nicely
02:46 PM rue_shop3: oooooh
02:46 PM rue_shop3: your right, I could use the file server for the buffer file
02:46 PM rue_shop3: then I dont have to worry about netcat
02:46 PM rue_shop3: and ports
02:46 PM rue_shop3: .... me thinks
02:47 PM rue_shop3: hahahah, computer A _IS_ the file server...
02:47 PM rue_shop3: er B
02:47 PM rue_shop3: what did I name all these again
02:47 PM rue_shop3: where is the labeler
02:47 PM rue_shop3: :)
02:48 PM rue_shop3: "So.... your DNS system is this list of postits?"
02:48 PM theBear: easy as a b c.... 1 2 3, a b c, 1 2 3 justa you and me girl..... "i may be a little feller, but i given all the love a man can give, and maybe a LITTLE bit extra!"
02:48 PM theBear: heh, young michael jackson knew how to deliver poetry
02:49 PM rue_shop3: so, to make that work
02:49 PM theBear: but seriously, you should use names, this a b c stuff is so darned hard to follow <grin>
02:49 PM rue_shop3: I comment out one line is the current script...
02:49 PM rue_shop3: move it to a network-accessable directory
02:49 PM rue_shop3: ...
02:50 PM rue_shop3: make a copy, swap out for the other line of code...
02:51 PM rue_shop3: go to that computer, run the client script...
03:07 PM rue_shop3: where was I
03:07 PM rue_shop3: plotter is now plugged in
03:11 PM rue_shop4: ok turned on
03:13 PM rue_shop3: permissions fixed...
03:13 PM rue_shop3: see if computer "a" will boot...
03:14 PM rue_shop3: uh, no power cap'n
03:14 PM rue_shop3: ok, little switch at the back in now in the ON state...
03:15 PM rue_shop3: ok the server script will need to be running, try that again...
03:17 PM rue_shop3: connection from A to B is alive...
03:21 PM rue_shop4: it works
03:21 PM rue_shop4: thanks bear
03:21 PM rue_shop4: mostly works, apparently I forgot how to init the plotter properly, but whatever
03:22 PM theBear: rofl, thanks ? surely i only slowed you down and distracted you on this one ?
03:26 PM rue_shop4: pen still works too
03:27 PM rue_shop4: no, you made me realize I could use the same script I was using split across two computers over the shared file systemm
03:28 PM rue_shop4: the old scipt was just a spooler, it would take the serial and push it into a buffer file, and another process would tail the buffer file to the parallel port
03:28 PM rue_shop4: so, the two just got split to two different computers and the file was put on the fileserver
03:29 PM rue_: it took longer to runt eh paralle cable to the nearest computer
03:33 PM rue_: http://www.euroviva.eu/cms/upload/mediagalerie/fotos/aerotrim/AAerotrim_4.jpg
03:34 PM rue_: hmm 3 rings and a stand, I'm short material by a bunch
03:34 PM theBear: ahh, in-house nfs and such is very convenient for many situations, i found over the years
03:35 PM rue_: I have two fileservers, most of the workstations are 'disposable'
03:35 PM rue_: its a nightmare to have to reload software tho
03:37 PM rue_: http://ruemohr.org/~ircjunk/images/pcbplotter.jpg
03:37 PM rue_: ^ theBear
03:38 PM rue_: arg, thats not a flea, its a freckle!
03:39 PM rue_: http://ruemohr.org/~ircjunk/robots/sparrow1/p1100309.jpg
03:40 PM rue_: I have the pipe bent for the next ring
03:40 PM rue_: have to cut the ends clear
03:40 PM rue_: and weld...
03:40 PM rue_: but I need a larger table
03:40 PM rue_: hmm 1:40
03:40 PM rue_: I'd have to put the rack ont eh truck
03:41 PM rue_: arg, and the loading dock is full of junk
03:50 PM rue_shop3: ok, I can make RF protoboards later
03:53 PM rue_shop3: so I need a 12V power supply for the shop speakers
03:56 PM theBear: if they like my footrest sub here (the old bass-cannon tube thinger from the past times,) and based on standard tda or stk or similar kinda designed-for-car-12v/non-inverted-rails stereo/high thingers, you can probly go up to almost 20v without even getting close to spec'd limits, which opens up the field re: which random psu-crate-psu you might use to power the thing
04:44 PM rue_shop3: 2x100w amp
04:44 PM rue_shop3: speakers are 50w
04:44 PM rue_shop3: but when you consider the speakers are 6R and the amp is prolly made for 4R...
04:47 PM theBear: what i meant was, peek thru a grill-hole and see what the power devices are, look 'em up, and chances are they happy to run sometimes even high enough to be "safe" on a 24v truck system, but very very few since the 70s integrated chip-amp designs aren't happy to 20 or close to it
04:49 PM theBear: you got a Roland ruler ? err, square/triangle? err, drafting board ? you sneaky bugger, that's like, super-cool
07:40 PM rue_shop4: its an xy plotter
07:40 PM rue_shop4: you put an etch resist pen in it, and your pcb, plot the resist direct