Author Archives: pgfeldman

Phil 5.7.12

8:00 – 4:30 FP

  • The kinetic sculpture race was a blast. Here are pix: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21701734@N04/sets/72157629972340647/
  • Let’s see if we can get sound working today!
  • And now a short pause while we install video driver updates…
  • Looking through the port_test code
  • Having problems with the serial code again. It appears that the arduino is getting into a condition where it thinks that there is always a character waiting to be sent
  • I’ve gone back to the test harness, which is having the same problems. It appears that there is something wrong with the workingBuf[]. If I don’t put characters into it, then the rest of the code works fine. Nope, it seems fine. Moving onto the aJSON and DataObject classes.
  • aJsonObject* jsonObject = aJson.parse(workingBuf); and aJson.deleteItem(jsonObject); seem to reliably crash things. I think it’s a memory leak. That would explain the randomness of the errors.
  • Putting a parser in the BaseDataObject class. Going to see if I can use this hashmap: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/HashMap
  • I really can’t believe I’m hand-rolling a parser. Ah, well. Onward.
  • Built a DataElement class (with static declarations!) Handles char[16], int and float. Mostly done. Integrate with HashMap and test tomorrow.

Phil 5.4.12

8:00 – 4:00 FP

  • May the 4th be with you!
  • PAD lab – spent some time going over the serial library
  • Hooked up Tom’s full rig to the sim. The sensors work, and the sound works using his sketch. He’s going to comment his code and I’ll start to integrate sound on Monday.
  • Bent the fingers on the hand to be a bit more ergonomic

Mike 5.4.12

  • Usual backups at site
  • Tangie still appears to be out but everything is still up and running as always
  • Back at the mill, going to finish up the new site and burn it to a disc to deploy on Monday

Tom 5.3.2012

Start: 10:40

  • Assembled a secondary connector for the sensors so Phil can test his stuff independently of the main electronic boards
  • Started making changes to the board design.
  • Added a power switch
  • Added mounting holes
  • Sent the negative input signal to ground to fix that feedback problem.
  • Considering a single board approach for the new boards now that I know the electronics will work.

End 6:40

Mike 5.3.12

  • Backups at site
  • Tried contacting Tangie with a list of addresses to try and connect to, got an out of office reply
  • Moved visibility and ppm+pa over to the production server with a copy of the database tables, everything seems to be working
  • Working on the new Visibility site.  I have pages for every tool now with images and some content.  I fixed a javascript issue that was preventing some of the cooler menus and functionality from working (you get what you pay for from free templates).

Phil 5.3.12

8:00 – 9:30 ESSO

  • Added my presence to the search for solutions.

9:30 – 4:30 FP

  • Integrate pressures today
  • Run sound from the PC until the Arduino is working? Synth shield (http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/fluxamasynth)
  • The sim is now sending sound ID and volume to the Arduino, and getting pressures!
  • Measuring presures from the force sensors.
  • The board seems to get stuck in the WAITING state occasionally. Added a RESET if there is no character read for 1/2 second.

Tom 5.3.2012

Start: 10:40

  • Read up on decoupling capacitors and found that I am using them correctly but maybe the traces are too long.
  • After careful consideration of how to solve the problems with the boards, I decided to send the negative signal wire from the amp input to ground instead of the negative lead on the pre-amp.
  • This has solved the problem with the feedback loop and made it so only one speaker plays at a time.  Whatever was wrong before must have something to do with the negative traces.  I am not sure if the sound gets as loud as it did before but there seems to be less distortion.
  • Did a bunch of testing with different sounds and stuff to make sure everything was working properly
  • Added board design changes to changes checklist.
  • I haven’t built the connector for Phil to test the analog input yet but if he wants he can use the ones on the boards that are working while I build that tomorrow.  I probably should help with this to make sure the right wires are used.

End: 6:40

Mike 5.2.2012

  • Usual backups at site
  • Turned in our April status report to Jim and his assistant from TASC
  • Working with Tangie to diagnose connectivity issues at some sites.  Phil assistant has been requested by ‘management’
  • Training for the new cognos system has fallen through so the customer would like to move forward with that.  There may be a meeting next week
  • Dong’s VR came through
  • Looked up the standards for classification banners on websites
  • Back at the mill typing up our April status for FGM Jim
  • Updated my 2012 performance plan
  • Working on content for the VIS Tool index pages

Phil 5.2.12

8:00 – 4:30 FP

  • And somehow, here we are back at communication libraries. At least I have an existence proof that it *can* work. The serial console is perfectly happy. Which means the Arduino code is happy. It looks like I get to blame Windows.
  • Serial looks more solid today. Need to integrate the classes so that ArduinoSerial does a straight passthrough to SerialPort
  • Code is fixed and in Subversion. Back to Monday’s task of integrating with the sim.
  • Building the outgoing JSON object. It turns out that trying to set an int value using cJSON->valueint doesn’t work. Use cJSON->valuedouble. If it’s an int, the printing will be correct.
    • SoundObject is up and running
    • PressureObject is created and waiting to be populated.
    • Tom is building a connector so that I can interact with the pressure sensors tomorrow.

Phil 5.1.12

8:00 – 5:00 FP

  • Generalize JSON parsing in the sketch
  • Integrate serial communication into the demo. Fail gracefully into a GUI-only system
    • Add sound?
    • Adding DataObjects for sound type & volume (inputs) and pressure (outputs). Done
    • And now the serial code is choking again. It seems to be related to the size of the stream that’s sent up. Looking at that after lunch. First test will be to read on the pc without writing, while having the arduino write at faster and faster rates.
    • I got things to work better, but not as well as the serial console. Found a serial library on google code (http://code.google.com/p/mbsutil/). Going to try to use a few pieces from that ad see if it will work better. Got it to compile. Tomorrow, I’ll try to integrate it…

Phil 4.30.12

8:00 – 4:30 FP

  • Seminar. Last one for the year!
  • SF86 follow up
  • Updated resume
  • Talked to Tom a bit about his preamp problems, and worked out a way to proceed.
  • Looked at the Arduino, but did nothing with it. Back to a normal schedule tomorrow.

Tom DeVito 4.30.2012

Start: 11:30

Board Design Improvements:

  • Add a switch for turning the board on/off
  • Move input leads so that the mounting hole doesn’t intersect with one of them.  I don’t think this is the cause of the issue as the one that works well has this same issue.

Potential solutions to the feedback issue:

  • Send the input signals negative lead to group instead of to the negative on the pre-amp
  • Possible need for another voltage regulator on 12 volt side.
  • Need to rebuild board on a breadboard to experiment with possible solutions.
  • Check current on 5 volt branch to make sure its not going over 1 amp.
  • Isolate out pre-amp to see if the problem is with that circuitry.

End : 3:15

Phil 4.28.12

1:00pm – 5:00 FP

  • Brought in some more tools
  • Seeing whether Tom and I can integrate the hardware for the show. Nope – feedback issues in the audio
  • The burn test ran fine for approximately 20 hours at 19.2 kbaud. I’m going to work on creating a separate library and then integrate into the KF hand code.
  • built separate library. Realized that I need to put in the JSON reading code on the PC side. Done.
  • Added string assembly code to arduino JSON library and tested
  • Committed all to Subversion

Mike 4.27.2012

  • Usual back ups at site
  • Production server still was not working when I got in.  Sent out and email checking on the status.  Right before I left I checked the site again and it worked!  No word from anyone but I sent an email out thanking everyone who I contacted and letting them know it was now working.
  • Now that the production server is up and running I’m working on new index and information pages for the visibility suite.  One page will have a banner declaring it the test site and urging people to the production site.