Budget ConnectR / Rovio

[bhylak]

I helped with the web server.

[mfortuna]

I haven't done any debugging of the control yet but the left and right spin commands sometimes spin the robot more than they should. It would be nice if a continious press resulted in continious movement. I will work on those changes at some point. I was able to access the robot and camera extenally so that is all good.

So roborealm has proved to be a very nice program for roomba experimentation.

Here is a picture of a potentially bad dog. There appears to be some trash on the floor so he may have gotten into the laundry room trash again. The screen shot is from me talking to the webserver from work. So I am able to drive the robot and get video from a webpage. In theory anything that can run java should be able to access the webserver.

[bhylak]

I'll see what I can do about it. I can also give you the "key" so to speak on how to modify it and add things yourself. its set so each press sets it to that value for 1 or 2 seconds. (Value is raised or lowered depending on the speed setting to the right) So you just click every 1 or 2 seconds to go continuous.

[Fraggboy]

That is so cool Mike!!

Great Job! It seems you are just making the final touches on your SecurityDawg!!

[mfortuna]

That is so cool Mike!!

Great Job! It seems you are just making the final touches on your SecurityDawg!!

Thanks Chris. I've been doing final touches to the security bot concept for years. Maybe some day I will finish it for good!

I want to get back to my brushless motor experiments and then figure out what do do with the command module and create.

[bhylak]

LOL!

"Anything that runs Java..."

Right, for the video stream. Even without, everything else will work.
I'm adding a robot arm to mine, should be good. I'm going to add it to the webserver I already have. If you want to add an arm, use the Propeller controller... it's supported in RoboRealm and I'm using it.

Also... take advantage of RoboRealm. One thing, for example, is object recognition. When I did my project, I geared it towards seniors. Therefore, I used the built in object recognition module to recognize a variety of pills. You can also have it recognize barcodes, etc. Theres a lot of fun stuff to play with in the modules section, so try it out.

[mfortuna]

Doh! I'm so used to Li-ION batteries that I don't worry if my robots get knocked off the dock. Yesterday AM I noticed Security Dawg was off the dock. I put him back on without thinking. Last night I noticed the charge indicator was still flashing red. I may have killed U2/U4 since I have a NIMH battery in it. It was green this AM but I have a feeling the battery is dead.

[Gordon]

Doh! ... I put him back on without thinking. ... I may have killed U2/U4 ...

Poor Security Dawg

If you wish to do so, you can verify whether U2 & U4 are functional or dead by doing some DMM supported checking as I detail in a thread titled "Testing MOSFETs_U2&U4 without using an O-scope"

If you try it and like it, you might use your moderator-power to slip in a link to it in the 4XXX section of this forum's READ FIRST section. TIA.

[mfortuna]

Double Doh! I think maybe it went into the recovery charge mode and thus took 16 hours?

Here is a screen dump of the SCI port:

bat: min 1713 sec 13 mV 17033 mA 46 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 14 mV 17033 mA 52 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 15 mV 17005 mA 46 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 16 mV 17005 mA 39 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 17 mV 17033 mA 39 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 18 mV 17033 mA 46 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 19 mV 17033 mA 59 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 20 mV 17061 mA 46 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 21 mV 17061 mA 46 deg-C 40
bat: min 1713 sec 22 mV 17088 mA 46 deg-C 40

Looks OK. Next time if it slips off the dock I will pull the battery and put it in my external rapid charger.

[bhylak]

Thats a good idea. I basically charge all the battery's in the external charger because I'm afraid of just that. Glad it didn't turn out to be an issue.

[mfortuna]

I decided to snoop around yesterday from work using roborealm. Things went well although I lost serial communication at the end. About 30 minutes later my daughter calls me at work and says, "One of you robots is going crazy." I had her pick the Dawg up and pull the battery. For some reason it go into dock mode and was not getting to the dock which is way under a chair. I think the beams get reflected and confuse it.

[bhylak]

It was probably in Full Mode instead of Safe Mode which would help it to be "crazy". (I assume she tried to pick it up or something) Your theory of the reflecting beams could explain the docking problem.

[mfortuna]

Recent update is an almost new APS battery went bad at some point. So far I found one bad cell. I'm going to create a thread with a few pictures on how I tested the battery.

A Li-ION battery I was using in a red seems to shutdown during a vacuuming mission. The battery has to be unplugged and plugged back in to de-activate the under voltage protection. I swapped it into the Security Dawg hoping the current draw from the wheel motors will not trip the undervoltage circuit. If it still does I may lower the capacity of the battery by removing the bad cell and three corresponding cells. This will halve the capacity but should be enough to snoop around the house.

[mfortuna]

Our poor guy (see the photo) is no longer with us. He made it to 13 years and had to put up with a mad robot tinkerer. There is still white fur all over the place. It will not be cleaned up for a while.

[ps0001]

I'm so sorry to hear that!