Smoking mouse problems
Archiver
Posts: 46,084
HI.
(background)
I'm working on building a micromouse to run through a maze.
My first attempt included using the stamp bs2sx, radio shack ir
detector part# 276-137A (aka Sharp G1U52X), some high end metal can
ir transmitters (can handle up to ten amps) that have a narrow 8
degree transmit field of view, and two H bridge circuits I designed
using darlington power transistors that could handle something like
ten amps peak (my motors required it). 2n904 heaters were used to
switch the H-bridges to the stamp, and act as buffers.
I used a homemade scr battery pack of around 9 volts that's capable
of delivering shorts bursts of around 300amps (if directly shorted).
This was my power supply for both the motors and the circuits, while
the circuit portion was regulated via a 5volt regulator ic and
filtered with a small capacitor. Through my dumb mistake of working
on it three day's straight with no sleep, I hooked the battery pack
up to it backwards...all but the H-bridges survived (their power was
straight to the battery pack)
The detectors were connected to +5V filtered supply, ground, and the
output directly to the stamp i/o ports, just as i'd seen in many
examples, including the parallax robotics student guide. This
seemingly worked excellent during part of my testing, but before very
long detection stopped, and I found the port was blown (I could no
longer make it input or output anything on the ports the detectors
were hooked up to). I tried including a measly ten ohm resistor in
series with the detector output and stamp port, this seemed to cure
the problem. I later added a 10K pull up after the 10Ohm series
resistor, as these detectors are active low and it stabalized my
readings. These ports never blew again.
What could have made the ports blow when every example that I saw
wired them straight to the port? I can't find a data sheet for these
detectors, if anyone knows a link...the package it came in only say's
Vout is 0.2V, + or - 4.4V, and the entire unit dissipates 3ma.
I'm now working on a new design, the insane motors are gone, for the
lack of wanting to design a gear train for them. I will be using
modified servo motors. Do I need to add any diodes or capacitors to
filter emf feedback from them so i dont' blow those output ports? In
every example the servo's are again wired straight to it but i dont'
trust that now. Stamps are too expensive to be loosing ports.
Also, I was thinking that since the servo's need to be pulsed in
timed loops I could run two bs2sx's to help share the work load so to
speak, and in doing so make it react a little bit quicker. One would
take care of all the IR work, and possibly some of the decision
making. While the other would control the servos.
Size, cost, and speed are issues, but this thing has to be fast. I'm
not sure if the benefits of two stamps would be worth the cost, or
perhaps an ic like the pakv11 I was just reading about, to take over
pulsing the servo's (i'm debating between two or four servo's). As it
stands with four servo's i'll need 8 ports stricly for IR, +4 for the
servo's =12, and I'd like to have 4LED's switched by the stamp in
accordance with the detectors to aide in tuning the range and any
possible trouble spots in the maze. So with one stamp there wouldn't
be room to grow at all, should there ever be a need. I know theres' a
stamp with more ports available, but it's much slower. What would be
fastest?
Last and certainly not least, I was using the basic stamp editor
version 1.096 with windows ME, what a horrible, horrible experience,
seriously enough to make me what to drop the stamp, as it had no
alternative method of programing (the dos program woudlnt' work at
all). The editor would cause a freez and blue screen, forcing a hard
shutdown. This would occur at extremely short intervals and very
repeatedly, making programing this easy to program mcu a complete
nightmare. My cpu is 333 @ 375 ( i tried downclocking already) 288mb
ram. I'm now running windows XP, but havent' had the chance to try it
with that yet.
I'm truly sorry for the lenght of this but those really are serious
questions I have, and I thought I could get better help if i gave
more detail.
Any and all sugestions and help are most welcome, and highly
appreciated, thanks in advance!
Chris
(background)
I'm working on building a micromouse to run through a maze.
My first attempt included using the stamp bs2sx, radio shack ir
detector part# 276-137A (aka Sharp G1U52X), some high end metal can
ir transmitters (can handle up to ten amps) that have a narrow 8
degree transmit field of view, and two H bridge circuits I designed
using darlington power transistors that could handle something like
ten amps peak (my motors required it). 2n904 heaters were used to
switch the H-bridges to the stamp, and act as buffers.
I used a homemade scr battery pack of around 9 volts that's capable
of delivering shorts bursts of around 300amps (if directly shorted).
This was my power supply for both the motors and the circuits, while
the circuit portion was regulated via a 5volt regulator ic and
filtered with a small capacitor. Through my dumb mistake of working
on it three day's straight with no sleep, I hooked the battery pack
up to it backwards...all but the H-bridges survived (their power was
straight to the battery pack)
The detectors were connected to +5V filtered supply, ground, and the
output directly to the stamp i/o ports, just as i'd seen in many
examples, including the parallax robotics student guide. This
seemingly worked excellent during part of my testing, but before very
long detection stopped, and I found the port was blown (I could no
longer make it input or output anything on the ports the detectors
were hooked up to). I tried including a measly ten ohm resistor in
series with the detector output and stamp port, this seemed to cure
the problem. I later added a 10K pull up after the 10Ohm series
resistor, as these detectors are active low and it stabalized my
readings. These ports never blew again.
What could have made the ports blow when every example that I saw
wired them straight to the port? I can't find a data sheet for these
detectors, if anyone knows a link...the package it came in only say's
Vout is 0.2V, + or - 4.4V, and the entire unit dissipates 3ma.
I'm now working on a new design, the insane motors are gone, for the
lack of wanting to design a gear train for them. I will be using
modified servo motors. Do I need to add any diodes or capacitors to
filter emf feedback from them so i dont' blow those output ports? In
every example the servo's are again wired straight to it but i dont'
trust that now. Stamps are too expensive to be loosing ports.
Also, I was thinking that since the servo's need to be pulsed in
timed loops I could run two bs2sx's to help share the work load so to
speak, and in doing so make it react a little bit quicker. One would
take care of all the IR work, and possibly some of the decision
making. While the other would control the servos.
Size, cost, and speed are issues, but this thing has to be fast. I'm
not sure if the benefits of two stamps would be worth the cost, or
perhaps an ic like the pakv11 I was just reading about, to take over
pulsing the servo's (i'm debating between two or four servo's). As it
stands with four servo's i'll need 8 ports stricly for IR, +4 for the
servo's =12, and I'd like to have 4LED's switched by the stamp in
accordance with the detectors to aide in tuning the range and any
possible trouble spots in the maze. So with one stamp there wouldn't
be room to grow at all, should there ever be a need. I know theres' a
stamp with more ports available, but it's much slower. What would be
fastest?
Last and certainly not least, I was using the basic stamp editor
version 1.096 with windows ME, what a horrible, horrible experience,
seriously enough to make me what to drop the stamp, as it had no
alternative method of programing (the dos program woudlnt' work at
all). The editor would cause a freez and blue screen, forcing a hard
shutdown. This would occur at extremely short intervals and very
repeatedly, making programing this easy to program mcu a complete
nightmare. My cpu is 333 @ 375 ( i tried downclocking already) 288mb
ram. I'm now running windows XP, but havent' had the chance to try it
with that yet.
I'm truly sorry for the lenght of this but those really are serious
questions I have, and I thought I could get better help if i gave
more detail.
Any and all sugestions and help are most welcome, and highly
appreciated, thanks in advance!
Chris
Comments
(background)
I'm working on building a micromouse to run through a maze.
My first attempt included using the stamp bs2sx, radio shack ir
detector part# 276-137A (aka Sharp G1U52X), some high end metal can
ir transmitters (can handle up to ten amps) that have a narrow 8
degree transmit field of view, and two H bridge circuits I designed
using darlington power transistors that could handle something like
ten amps peak (my motors required it). 2n904 heaters were used to
switch the H-bridges to the stamp, and act as buffers.
I used a homemade scr battery pack of around 9 volts that's capable
of delivering shorts bursts of around 300amps (if directly shorted).
This was my power supply for both the motors and the circuits, while
the circuit portion was regulated via a 5volt regulator ic and
filtered with a small capacitor. Through my dumb mistake of working
on it three day's straight with no sleep, I hooked the battery pack
up to it backwards...all but the H-bridges survived (their power was
straight to the battery pack)
The detectors were connected to +5V filtered supply, ground, and the
output directly to the stamp i/o ports, just as i'd seen in many
examples, including the parallax robotics student guide. This
seemingly worked excellent during part of my testing, but before very
long detection stopped, and I found the port was blown (I could no
longer make it input or output anything on the ports the detectors
were hooked up to). I tried including a measly ten ohm resistor in
series with the detector output and stamp port, this seemed to cure
the problem. I later added a 10K pull up after the 10Ohm series
resistor, as these detectors are active low and it stabalized my
readings. These ports never blew again.
What could have made the ports blow when every example that I saw
wired them straight to the port? I can't find a data sheet for these
detectors, if anyone knows a link...the package it came in only say's
Vout is 0.2V, + or - 4.4V, and the entire unit dissipates 3ma.
I'm now working on a new design, the insane motors are gone, for the
lack of wanting to design a gear train for them. I will be using
modified servo motors. Do I need to add any diodes or capacitors to
filter emf feedback from them so i dont' blow those output ports? In
every example the servo's are again wired straight to it but i dont'
trust that now. Stamps are too expensive to be loosing ports.
Also, I was thinking that since the servo's need to be pulsed in
timed loops I could run two bs2sx's to help share the work load so to
speak, and in doing so make it react a little bit quicker. One would
take care of all the IR work, and possibly some of the decision
making. While the other would control the servos.
Size, cost, and speed are issues, but this thing has to be fast. I'm
not sure if the benefits of two stamps would be worth the cost, or
perhaps an ic like the pakv11 I was just reading about, to take over
pulsing the servo's (i'm debating between two or four servo's). As it
stands with four servo's i'll need 8 ports stricly for IR, +4 for the
servo's =12, and I'd like to have 4LED's switched by the stamp in
accordance with the detectors to aide in tuning the range and any
possible trouble spots in the maze. So with one stamp there wouldn't
be room to grow at all, should there ever be a need. I know theres' a
stamp with more ports available, but it's much slower. What would be
fastest?
Last and certainly not least, I was using the basic stamp editor
version 1.096 with windows ME, what a horrible, horrible experience,
seriously enough to make me what to drop the stamp, as it had no
alternative method of programing (the dos program woudlnt' work at
all). The editor would cause a freez and blue screen, forcing a hard
shutdown. This would occur at extremely short intervals and very
repeatedly, making programing this easy to program mcu a complete
nightmare. My cpu is 333 @ 375 ( i tried downclocking already) 288mb
ram. I'm now running windows XP, but havent' had the chance to try it
with that yet.
I'm truly sorry for the lenght of this but those really are serious
questions I have, and I thought I could get better help if i gave
more detail.
Any and all sugestions and help are most welcome, and highly
appreciated, thanks in advance!
Chris
are you absolutely positive that the mouse didn't have sex while he was in
the maze?
richard
Original Message
From: <cbielek@y...>
To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 11:43 AM
Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Smoking mouse problems
> HI.
> (background)
> I'm working on building a micromouse to run through a maze.
>
> My first attempt included using the stamp bs2sx, radio shack ir
> detector part# 276-137A (aka Sharp G1U52X), some high end metal can
> ir transmitters (can handle up to ten amps) that have a narrow 8
> degree transmit field of view, and two H bridge circuits I designed
> using darlington power transistors that could handle something like
> ten amps peak (my motors required it). 2n904 heaters were used to
> switch the H-bridges to the stamp, and act as buffers.
> I used a homemade scr battery pack of around 9 volts that's capable
> of delivering shorts bursts of around 300amps (if directly shorted).
>
> This was my power supply for both the motors and the circuits, while
> the circuit portion was regulated via a 5volt regulator ic and
> filtered with a small capacitor. Through my dumb mistake of working
> on it three day's straight with no sleep, I hooked the battery pack
> up to it backwards...all but the H-bridges survived (their power was
> straight to the battery pack)
>
> The detectors were connected to +5V filtered supply, ground, and the
> output directly to the stamp i/o ports, just as i'd seen in many
> examples, including the parallax robotics student guide. This
> seemingly worked excellent during part of my testing, but before very
> long detection stopped, and I found the port was blown (I could no
> longer make it input or output anything on the ports the detectors
> were hooked up to). I tried including a measly ten ohm resistor in
> series with the detector output and stamp port, this seemed to cure
> the problem. I later added a 10K pull up after the 10Ohm series
> resistor, as these detectors are active low and it stabalized my
> readings. These ports never blew again.
>
> What could have made the ports blow when every example that I saw
> wired them straight to the port? I can't find a data sheet for these
> detectors, if anyone knows a link...the package it came in only say's
> Vout is 0.2V, + or - 4.4V, and the entire unit dissipates 3ma.
>
> I'm now working on a new design, the insane motors are gone, for the
> lack of wanting to design a gear train for them. I will be using
> modified servo motors. Do I need to add any diodes or capacitors to
> filter emf feedback from them so i dont' blow those output ports? In
> every example the servo's are again wired straight to it but i dont'
> trust that now. Stamps are too expensive to be loosing ports.
>
> Also, I was thinking that since the servo's need to be pulsed in
> timed loops I could run two bs2sx's to help share the work load so to
> speak, and in doing so make it react a little bit quicker. One would
> take care of all the IR work, and possibly some of the decision
> making. While the other would control the servos.
>
> Size, cost, and speed are issues, but this thing has to be fast. I'm
> not sure if the benefits of two stamps would be worth the cost, or
> perhaps an ic like the pakv11 I was just reading about, to take over
> pulsing the servo's (i'm debating between two or four servo's). As it
> stands with four servo's i'll need 8 ports stricly for IR, +4 for the
> servo's =12, and I'd like to have 4LED's switched by the stamp in
> accordance with the detectors to aide in tuning the range and any
> possible trouble spots in the maze. So with one stamp there wouldn't
> be room to grow at all, should there ever be a need. I know theres' a
> stamp with more ports available, but it's much slower. What would be
> fastest?
>
> Last and certainly not least, I was using the basic stamp editor
> version 1.096 with windows ME, what a horrible, horrible experience,
> seriously enough to make me what to drop the stamp, as it had no
> alternative method of programing (the dos program woudlnt' work at
> all). The editor would cause a freez and blue screen, forcing a hard
> shutdown. This would occur at extremely short intervals and very
> repeatedly, making programing this easy to program mcu a complete
> nightmare. My cpu is 333 @ 375 ( i tried downclocking already) 288mb
> ram. I'm now running windows XP, but havent' had the chance to try it
> with that yet.
>
> I'm truly sorry for the lenght of this but those really are serious
> questions I have, and I thought I could get better help if i gave
> more detail.
>
> Any and all sugestions and help are most welcome, and highly
> appreciated, thanks in advance!
>
> Chris
>
>
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
> basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> from the same email address that you subscribed. Text in the Subject and
Body of the message will be ignored.
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
--- In basicstamps@y..., "Richard Friedrich" <rfriedrich@a...> wrote:
> smoking mouse ??
>
> are you absolutely positive that the mouse didn't have sex while he
was in
> the maze?
>
> richard
>
>
>
Original Message
> From: <cbielek@y...>
> To: <basicstamps@y...>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 11:43 AM
> Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] Smoking mouse problems
>
>
> > HI.
> > (background)
> > I'm working on building a micromouse to run through a maze.
> >
> > My first attempt included using the stamp bs2sx, radio shack ir
> > detector part# 276-137A (aka Sharp G1U52X), some high end metal
can
> > ir transmitters (can handle up to ten amps) that have a narrow 8
> > degree transmit field of view, and two H bridge circuits I
designed
> > using darlington power transistors that could handle something
like
> > ten amps peak (my motors required it). 2n904 heaters were used to
> > switch the H-bridges to the stamp, and act as buffers.
> > I used a homemade scr battery pack of around 9 volts that's
capable
> > of delivering shorts bursts of around 300amps (if directly
shorted).
> >
> > This was my power supply for both the motors and the circuits,
while
> > the circuit portion was regulated via a 5volt regulator ic and
> > filtered with a small capacitor. Through my dumb mistake of
working
> > on it three day's straight with no sleep, I hooked the battery
pack
> > up to it backwards...all but the H-bridges survived (their power
was
> > straight to the battery pack)
> >
> > The detectors were connected to +5V filtered supply, ground, and
the
> > output directly to the stamp i/o ports, just as i'd seen in many
> > examples, including the parallax robotics student guide. This
> > seemingly worked excellent during part of my testing, but before
very
> > long detection stopped, and I found the port was blown (I could no
> > longer make it input or output anything on the ports the detectors
> > were hooked up to). I tried including a measly ten ohm resistor in
> > series with the detector output and stamp port, this seemed to
cure
> > the problem. I later added a 10K pull up after the 10Ohm series
> > resistor, as these detectors are active low and it stabalized my
> > readings. These ports never blew again.
> >
> > What could have made the ports blow when every example that I saw
> > wired them straight to the port? I can't find a data sheet for
these
> > detectors, if anyone knows a link...the package it came in only
say's
> > Vout is 0.2V, + or - 4.4V, and the entire unit dissipates 3ma.
> >
> > I'm now working on a new design, the insane motors are gone, for
the
> > lack of wanting to design a gear train for them. I will be using
> > modified servo motors. Do I need to add any diodes or capacitors
to
> > filter emf feedback from them so i dont' blow those output ports?
In
> > every example the servo's are again wired straight to it but i
dont'
> > trust that now. Stamps are too expensive to be loosing ports.
> >
> > Also, I was thinking that since the servo's need to be pulsed in
> > timed loops I could run two bs2sx's to help share the work load
so to
> > speak, and in doing so make it react a little bit quicker. One
would
> > take care of all the IR work, and possibly some of the decision
> > making. While the other would control the servos.
> >
> > Size, cost, and speed are issues, but this thing has to be fast.
I'm
> > not sure if the benefits of two stamps would be worth the cost, or
> > perhaps an ic like the pakv11 I was just reading about, to take
over
> > pulsing the servo's (i'm debating between two or four servo's).
As it
> > stands with four servo's i'll need 8 ports stricly for IR, +4 for
the
> > servo's =12, and I'd like to have 4LED's switched by the stamp in
> > accordance with the detectors to aide in tuning the range and any
> > possible trouble spots in the maze. So with one stamp there
wouldn't
> > be room to grow at all, should there ever be a need. I know
theres' a
> > stamp with more ports available, but it's much slower. What would
be
> > fastest?
> >
> > Last and certainly not least, I was using the basic stamp editor
> > version 1.096 with windows ME, what a horrible, horrible
experience,
> > seriously enough to make me what to drop the stamp, as it had no
> > alternative method of programing (the dos program woudlnt' work at
> > all). The editor would cause a freez and blue screen, forcing a
hard
> > shutdown. This would occur at extremely short intervals and very
> > repeatedly, making programing this easy to program mcu a complete
> > nightmare. My cpu is 333 @ 375 ( i tried downclocking already)
288mb
> > ram. I'm now running windows XP, but havent' had the chance to
try it
> > with that yet.
> >
> > I'm truly sorry for the lenght of this but those really are
serious
> > questions I have, and I thought I could get better help if i gave
> > more detail.
> >
> > Any and all sugestions and help are most welcome, and highly
> > appreciated, thanks in advance!
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> > To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
> > basicstamps-unsubscribe@y...
> > from the same email address that you subscribed. Text in the
Subject and
> Body of the message will be ignored.
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
terrible time (mine) And on some machines it performs very poorly
overall (every one I've seen) You didnt mention, but is(was) your machine
running like a top execept for the Stamp editor? Im guessing lots of
things were crashing as well. My suggestion is to program stamps on a
healthy WIN 98 first edition machine, that doesnt blue screen more
than once a week. also....at least you could use good old dos
if necessary
P.S. Ive heard that ME really hates AMD/non-intel chipsets..........
like are found on many homebuilt PCs (due to their lower costs )
Just my opinion, lets hear from the ME/XP faithful.....should
stampers all have XP?
Dave
problems with my STAMP or PIC programmers. I still prefer 98 but mainly
because I'm used to it! Don't have any reason for going to XP at this point
in time! Microsoft already has too much of my money!
blue screens in ME, and so frequently I never got more
than a 20 line program uploaded. MS has too much of
mine as well, that's why XP was a gift from them.
It've found it needs to be rebooted about as often as
ME does....go figure. I think it would be great if the
stamp could be programed from linux. Thank you for
your response.
--- azeasi@a... wrote:
> I've been running ME for several months now and have
> Not experienced any
> problems with my STAMP or PIC programmers. I still
> prefer 98 but mainly
> because I'm used to it! Don't have any reason for
> going to XP at this point
> in time! Microsoft already has too much of my money!
>
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, just send mail to:
> basicstamps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> from the same email address that you subscribed.
> Text in the Subject and Body of the message will be
> ignored.
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
_______________________________________________________
Build your own website in minutes and for free at http://ca.geocities.com