Replies to This Discussion

AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on June 27, 2012 at 10:17am

Hi Alan,

I have been building a Parallax EDDIE clone based on Steve Norris' designs. I plan on using a mini-itx based on an Intel embedded processor board. Since EDDIE has a MS Kinect onboard, image recognition is a snap. Steve Norris has already written target recognition code for EDDIE and it is open source. I have added extra SLA batteries to my clone chassis so it can travel a great distance without recharging.

Regards,

TCIII

Permalink Reply by KM6VV on June 27, 2012 at 12:09pm

You've got a Kinect on board?  That would be super!  Have you had it out in the sun yet?  I've heard that the Kinect and the LiDARs need a shade over them when they are operated in the sun.

I'll have to study Noris' labs a little more!

Alan

AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on June 27, 2012 at 3:38pm

Hi Alan,

Haven't tried it in the sun yet. All indoor/garage operation. When I get back to FL, I will try it outside if it is not raining!LOL.

Regards,

TCIII

Permalink Reply by KM6VV on June 27, 2012 at 4:02pm

I've got a Hokuyo LiDAR to try out, once I get ROS loaded, I can try it out! 

Alan

Permalink Reply by KM6VV on June 29, 2012 at 11:23am

I looked at a mini-ITX yesterday.  $90 price is cheaper then the expensive SBC FIT-PC2 I've been following.

SBC FIT-PC2

Looks like it would be good to have a SSD, instead of the regular SATA hard disk.  I did see a Corsair drive at Fry's.

Corsair

Here's a Seebot1 link, it's the Stamp Robomagellan.

Best Regards,

Alan

Permalink Reply by Bot Thoughts on June 27, 2012 at 12:29pm

Sounds great! Looking forward to updates. I'm curious about the whole Robomagellan thing. Would love to enter a (the?) competition some day. The problem only seems similar to the AVC on the very, very, surface of it. :)  It'd be interesting to deal with terrain rougher than parking lot with potholes.

Permalink Reply by KM6VV on June 27, 2012 at 2:37pm

Can be rougher terrain, GPS and compass cassavas, intermittent human unintended intervention, and batteries that simply refuse to work on command.

Check out RoboGames here in the bay area for Robomagellan and many more contests!

Alan

Permalink Reply by Niall Dempsey on July 9, 2012 at 2:38am

I'm checking out the Raspberry Pi. It is low cost with minimal power consumption, low weight and speedy boot up. Considering setting it up as a wireless webserver using a wireless mobile dongle or maybe using WiFi. Then it could control the robot over the internet, stream back video and maybe do some additional sensor processing.

Permalink Reply by KM6VV on July 31, 2012 at 9:34am

I looked at the FITPC2, but settled on a Mini ITX.  A little bigger, but much less expensive.  should be here end of the week or next week.

Alan

AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on July 31, 2012 at 9:44am

@Alan,

What brand of Mini-ITX? I have been considering the Intel Atom line of embedded processor Mini-ITX motherboards. Intel presently makes a Mini-ITX dual Atom motherboard that has an onboard power supply that operates off of 9 - 18 volts.

Regards,

TCIII

Permalink Reply by KM6VV on July 31, 2012 at 11:29am

Hi Thomas,

I (my wife) ordered an Intel Desktop Board DN2800MT from Amazon along with a memory board.  No SSD yet, but I have a HD I'll try it with.  I have Ubuntu 10.4 on a CD, and a USB CD drive, so I'll load it that way (I hope).  Probably should partition the drive, and put XP or something on it.  I'll need to find an XP CD.

ROS runs under Ubuntu.  Hopefully I can learn and get code written for that, and use my loner LiDAR. 

2800 board

Yeah!  9-18 V!,  and not much current draw.  An additional 12 V, 4500 mAh NiCAD battery pack otta handle it. 

Still trying to fix my bricked Arduino Mega 2560 8U2 boot.  Found an old Ardupilot thread on the subject, no reply yet.

You get moved?

Alan

Permalink Reply by KM6VV on August 9, 2012 at 2:39pm

MY DN2800MT Mini-ITX board ordered from Amazon is up and running now.  I initially connected up an old SATA drive pulled from my failed work desk computer.  The PC had first had problems reading the C drive, and then later couldn't boot.  IT managed to recover files I needed off of it, and told me I could read more by getting a USB-SATA adapter (about $19).  Which I did, and pulled a few more files off the drive (most of my stuff was on network and a second, bigger drive).  IT build me a new, faster, etc, PC for my work desk.

I connected this drive up to the ITX, and it came up!  Slow, but after guessing the right password, and getting the screen format reduced so that I could see enough on the smaller LCD screen I was using, I was able to wander around the drive.  Very slow, so that supported the "bad drive" theory.

After figuring out the power switch, which slot to but the memory in, scrounging a USB keyboard and mouse from my wife's new machine, and trying out a SATA drive, I got brave and connected up another SATA (used) drive I bought from surplus store.  I also connected up an optical drive (DVD) and with an XP setup disk, started to partition and format the drive.  The ITX saw the USB DVD drive! 

It took a good three hours to install XP, and it works!  Might not have the drivers for the LAN and other stuff (XP asked me when I was starting up on my work drive, but not this time).  But I did get a CD with the ITX motherboard, so I can add them when requested. 

My work drive wanted my old (last quarter) work password, which luckily I remembered.  This new setup asked for an ADMIN password, which I created.  Maybe I won't need a password on this installation of XP!  For an imbedded system I really don't want one.  I'll have to figure out a batch file to run whatever I come up with (ROS?) to run on it.  ROS will require Ubuntu 10.4, which I can load from an ISO CD, and it will re-partition disk (I shoulda thought of that when I did it the first time) and create a dual-boot. 

I'll probably get a mSATA SSD drive for it anyway.  The mSATA drive mounts right on the ITX.  Or maybe just a SATA SSD drive, which would install with usual cables.  That would be useful other places as well.  And with the USB-SATA adapter, the drive could be plugged into a desk PC for downloading.  I haven't decided.

Alan

P.S. never did get a reply over on the bootloader thread (which I can't find now).