Journal00 feb
From Simreal
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February 2000
Sun, 27 February 2000
It has been nearly two months since the last update in early January -- but that's the fate of a back-burner project.
I've designed, built, tested, re-designed, re-built, and re-tested some new brains for Boris. You can find them in the usual place, if you are interested. Right now, these brains are sitting in Boris waiting for me to go back tonight.
Yesterday, I spent just about all day in the warehouse. I had to re-work the wiring harness for these boards, since they are using Euroblocks and not the Molex plug connectors. A simple snip, strip, and tin did the job this time. One thing I've learned over this project is... I hate crimp connectors.
Sure, they are great for high-power connections since there is no solder to melt, sure they are great if you have the high-end crimpers, but for us lowly folks, they suck really bad. The time spent in crimping is time better spent doing anything else.
What do I love now? RJ-series plugs. RJ11 has their four and six wire versions, RJ45 their eight. Good for dang near everything, easy to build cables, easy to buy pre-made cables (a definite plus), and all around great.
Those euroblocks aren't bad, either -- stuff the wire in the hole, screw it down snug. Vibration issues? Use some Loctite, I suppose. I'll find out soon!
There are only six boards on the robot now, I've taken the responsibility of the seventh board up to the main PC. My PC software to driver it is, essentially, Hyperterminal right now... the brains use a very simple ASCII protocol. Eventually, I'll drop in a laptop or palmtop for local control.
I have other software in progress, essentially a macro driver to send groups of commands to the robot, for easy control.
Still lots of stuff to do, but the major hurdles are rapidly fading behind me now. I have a demo at a local school this coming Thursday, and South-by-Southwest will see an operation Boris March 12th or so...
I'll be collecting pictures of Boris in action over the next month, and I'll put them up when I have enough to be interesting.
