[Robotgroup] GPS unit (was: Restarting in mid-script..)

Tue Dec 12 14:20:49 PST 2006

Eric,

I could loan you one of the 45AH batteries I got when I bought the electric wheel chair. They are pretty big, about the size of a group 24 car battery. Let me know if you want me to bring it Thursday evening. (I probably won't get to Poke Joes until 9:15 or so.)

Paul

----- Original Message ----
From: Eric Lundquist <eric.g.lundquist at gmail.com>
To: Austin Robotgroup Mailing List <robotgroup at puremagic.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 4:09:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Robotgroup] GPS unit (was: Restarting in mid-script..)

One of the reasons I have not mounted all of the electronics to the
base yet is because of problems I am having with reliable  power.  I
tried to get away with using a hand-me-down UPS lead-acid battery. 12V
14AH.  Wasted a lot of time chasing ghosts that were caused by a weak
cell.  I've decided that I am going to have to break down and buy a
new small deep cycle battery similar to the one I have installed on my
other platform.  With the holiday season sucking all my available
cash, it will probably have to wait until after New Years.  Once I
install a good battery into the base, I can then confidently start
permanently mounting the eletronics.

- Eric

On 12/12/06, Nick Pietraniec <mlists at resistive.net> wrote:
> All of the pieces still exist :)  It might take a little while to put
> them all back together.  Maybe someday when I have a little bit of
> time :)
>
> I did an RC car with some primitive object avoidance a few years ago
> too.  We used sonar sensors to have it take over control when you tried
> to run it into a wall.  It didn't work too bad...  That thing is long
> gone though.
>
> How are you going to handle power?  I always found that to be a major
> pain when dealing with mobile stuff.  Lead acid batteries?
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 2006-12-12 at 14:53 -0600, Eric Lundquist wrote:
> > Nick,
> > That sounds like a really cool project!  Does it still exist?  Would
> > love to see it!
> >
> > A few weeks back, I got inspired to work on a "real" robot.  I had a
> > really nice steel frame mobile platform designed by Edwin Wise that
> > was sitting around.  People in Houston (SHARP) and Dallas (DPRG) were
> > working on a sort of Mini-Robo-Magellen contest in which the robot
> > would maneuver to some outdoor GPS waypoints. (
> > http://www.robothon.org/robothon/challenge.php )  The goal is that
> > perhaps by mid-year I will have something that could reasonably
> > navigate with odometry and GPS with some obstacle avoidance thrown in
> > to keep it interesting.
> >
> > - Eric
> >
> >
> >
> > On 12/12/06, Nick Pietraniec <mlists at resistive.net> wrote:
> > > I did a project which interfaced a Garmin GPS with a Motorola HC11
> > > microcontroller through an RS232 connection and drew a map as you walked
> > > on an etch-a-sketch.  It wasn't very accurate, but the code was small
> > > since I wrote it in assembly.  Did I miss the email?  What are you guys
> > > working on?
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2006-12-12 at 13:30 -0600, Eric Lundquist wrote:
> > > > It's still too early to tell.  So far, I have a bunch of different
> > > > microcontrollers and electronics (AVR ATMEGA162, Pololu SSC, RS232
> > > > converter, H Bridges, odometry circuit, +5V power regulator, and the
> > > > GPS) spread out on my kichen table with the robot under the table up
> > > > on blocks and the whole thing barely glued together with a mass of
> > > > "don't breath on it too hard" cabling.  Since I haven't moved the
> > > > whole works outside yet, I can't get real GPS readings.  Though, I can
> > > > state with confidence that the Parallax GPS reliably sends continuous
> > > > 0's from my kitchen table. :)  Seriously, I have the code written for
> > > > the AVR to process the GPS NMEA input but it is pretty large due to
> > > > the inclusion of the C floating point libraries.  I may end having to
> > > > rewritie it to get the code size down.
> > > >
> > > > So far, I have been concentrating on the basic drive mechanisms.  Once
> > > > I have that working a little better and all mounted onto the robot
> > > > base, I'll be able to then work on integrating real-time GPS data.
> > > >
> > > > - Eric
> > > >
> > > > On 12/12/06, Vern Graner <vern at txis.com> wrote:
> > > > > Eric Lundquist wrote:
> > > > > > Vern has generously loaned me a Parallax GPS unit that has a TTL
> > > > > > RS232 interface that I am experimenting with now.
> > > > >
> > > > > So.. any luck? how well does it work? :)
> > > > >
> > > > > Vern
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
> > > > > Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
> > > > > Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
> > > > > http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
> > > > > Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" (c)VLG
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