Blinky Box

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Blinky
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Joined: Wed May 01, 2019 11:18 pm

Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

A pivoting case for the stereo pi regular cameras I built this weekend.

Regards,
Blinky
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Realizator
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Realizator »

I like cardboard for prototyping too!
Do you plan to add a kind of servo to pivot your box, or it is intended for manual rotation?
Eugene a.k.a. Realizator

Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

Yes, two eventually for up and down as well, the mechanics are easy for me, the programming will be above my pay grade though.

I recall building a Waveshare Alphabot with an optional arduino responsible for the movement. They had open source software for both with and without the arduino that would allow remote control from the screen of your android smartphone, it would be interesting to have that control transferred to the gyroscopes from the smartphone allowing for movement of the Blinky Box.

Regards,
Blinky

Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

So with the snow flying again, here is Blinky at a young age.

Not everything works yet but the neck, wheels and vision do remotely. :)

That is a Waveshare Alphabot in his chest. A handy way to hold the other Raspbery Pi and Uno.

Regards
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Realizator »

Hey Blinky,
Your robot has grown and evolved! Cool!
If you'll have some more details or video - please share it with us!
UPD> I plan to post an update at Crowd Supply in the nearest days, with the collection of a projects from StereoPi users. I will add your project, and will be pleased if you can provide some more details! :-)
Eugene a.k.a. Realizator

Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

Yes, Blinky is growing. The project currently has completed an installation of a recently modified Meccbrain.h to replace the servo header in the arduino software. This, along with an easily made small wiring harness, allows the Waveshare Alphabot's application of Webiopi software to control the Meccanoid servo's. Adjusting the Alphabot's Raspberry Pi model 3's generated webpage allows for calibration of the servos.

Many thanks need go to tatyana volkova https://github.com/robotscity/meccanoid_arduino_demo who illustrated the software methods used.

The wiring harness is described and available for purchase from https://meccontrol.com/help/software/de ... servomotor .

This is also a telepresence droid and the projects you have highlighted so far will have application to this project as well. I look forward to reading the article which discusses a 10ms response time, it sounds very useful.

The regular camera's use in the first set of tests is motivating me to upgrade the head motion. Therefore the ToDo list includes using the headset's gyros to control the neck servo's as another recent project has done, converting from Webiopi to a bluetooth hand controller which will augment a track conversion, adding arm control, adding microphone and speakers and installation of as many sensors as possible. It is very early in the winter so I hope to solve some of these puzzles soon.

So far I have used a Stereo Pi deluxe, a Waveshare Alphabot (first edition), Two Meccanoid sets, the 1st edition 4 foot bought used and the 2nd edition 2 foot bought on clearance, some misc meccano metal and rubber pieces and some inexpensive electrics, a Belkin wireless connection, total investment approximately $400 US. Hours spent so far, well that would be telling. lol

Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

This is a picture of how the stereo pi is mounted.

Regards,
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Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

A video with it's servo's working.

https://youtu.be/v8B4MPoSWNA

Regards

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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Realizator »

Really cool! Are you planning to do a blog for your project? It is really interesting!
I've added a link to this forum thread in our upcoming Crowd Supply update.
Also, as an idea, you can write a Field Report about your project and post it on Crowd Supply. By the way, if you do it in December, Crowd Supply has a $250 store credit bonus for winners. :D
Eugene a.k.a. Realizator

Blinky
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How Blinky's sidekick Perky got his nickname.

Post by Blinky »

Thumb stick control running 6 volts instead of 5 without any smoothing or easing.

https://youtu.be/G1Fqs_e6rKw

Regards

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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Realizator »

Yep, Blinky is too fast, too furious. Looks like he was able to troll you successfully with this "Hey man, I'm about to fall from the table! Ha-ha!" :lol:
As I understand, you'll add more heavy load to the platform (like batteries etc.), and it add more balance.
Eugene a.k.a. Realizator

Blinky
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Perky gets tamed.

Post by Blinky »

https://youtu.be/yRRjkru--3Y

Updated the software by using the ideas from the servo-test example included in

https://github.com/automation-technolog ... mart-Servo

to change the vertical movement to steps of 5 and the horizontal to speed up half way to the destination and slow down the last half.

Now that the servo's are tamed, it is time to get the positioning data from the gyroscopes in the phone.

The chained nature of the meccano servos required a foray into the world of C programing on the UNO. This I hope will a good background, for soon the stereopi will be the focus of the puzzles and not the fancy case. :)

BTW Blinky is blue, Perky is in yellows, and what will I be able to do with not one, but two of these fellows?

Regards

Blinky
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Perky gets some results.

Post by Blinky »

Perky Cooperates.jpg
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https://youtu.be/w5wt0ZmyXkk

Using the Data Collector App on android to send phone data via a websocket in python to be sent via a coding dance through the serial port and
then processed by the arduino.

Two months of searching down rabbit holes and finding out that people are trying to make money by offering to pat you on the head and say
"We will handle for you, you can play with our software for a small fee". Well this article https://websockets.readthedocs.io/en/stable/intro.html, the above mentioned app and a lot of syntax and logic errors later will get you past all that.

Looking forward to the motor driver boards and level converters to carry on. :)

Regards

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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Realizator »

I feel your pain, bro!
When we've started with the stereovision on Python for the RPi ecosystem, there were no ready-to-use examples, and we do it from scratch.
The same is with your websocket experiments. :-)
To say the true, we have some advanced solutions for remote control from our other solutions (for DIY drones and DJI drones and video systems), but at this moment all that code is "out of scope" of StereoPi project focus. We have a plan to do some special symbiotic solution (SLP + remote control features) in the future. For example, you can find pigpiod daemon working in our SLP image, as we're not completely remove this code while making SLP. It was intended for control of servos and motors (by PWM as a rule). We prefer to use RPi (but not Arduino) on the robot side for this. If you're curious, SLP is a very simplified version of our another project, cosmostreamer.com
Eugene a.k.a. Realizator

Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

Realizator, after looking at your other site I see that your vision goes beyond, far beyond the stereopi and encompasses many of the concepts I too am pursuing. Your successful creation of product from idea is very impressive. I look forward to the updates you have planned for the stereopi and the cool things the future holds due to the work of people like you. Thank you for your efforts and I wish all good karma is with you forever.

Regards

Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

Two years later, but, hey it works.
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Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

https://hackaday.io/project/188925-perkys-rides
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Blinky
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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Blinky »

Happy New Year, entered my Stereopi V2 Perky robot in this contest https://hackaday.io/contest/188273-2022-fpv-contest

This is my entry https://hackaday.io/project/188925-perkys-rides

Got an honourable mention https://hackaday.com/2023/01/16/2022-fp ... e-winners/

Thanks for the camera that inspired all that.

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Re: Blinky Box

Post by Realizator »

Hey Blinky,

Congratulations! :-)

And than you for your support and good words!
Eugene a.k.a. Realizator

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