7:30 -3:00

• Got a note from Michelle G (LDAT). They want to move ahead. I need to get FGM’s NDA
• Adding better keyboard control to scripting window. Trapped tabs, going for autoindent. Basics of autoindent are done.
• Some permissions problem at the fort. Going back in. Fixed
• 9:30 Meeting with Anne on Monday. Come here first, I guess.

• Finished attaching strain gauges.  Currently waiting for silicone to dry.  For future reference make sure the first layer of resin is fully dry before attaching strain gauges.  If not you might end up with the strain gauge touching the metal rod.
• Added a stop_CW(clockwise) and stopCCW(counter-clockwise) so that it wouldn’t get move commands when its collision reaches the maximum force.  Its hard to test how successful the changes I made were until I get the other sensor stick working because the current one acts too erratic.
• Read OpenGL book

• Strain gauge sensors were changing in unison.  Found out this is because on strain guage was touching the metal rod and through that connecting to the motor ground.
• Still works with ground detached but there is signal interference this way.
• Started attempting to make a strain gauge rod.   Failed first attempt.
• Started reworking the way the output motor reacts to input so that I can stop it when it collides before it stalls out.

8:00-5:30

• Prepping for LDAT demo – went pretty well
• Working on publish GUI – done with the first version. Need to make the text field associated with editing code a little more friendly (tabs should insert 4 spaces, etc)

7:30 – 3:00

• Well, I come in and see that the script runner seems to be running just fine, but the scripts aren’t executing. Upon inspection it turns out that runPeriodicScripts isn’t executing the scripts. Need to add that in. Done. Everything seems to be working. Going to let things cook while I’m at meetings
• Need to be able to delete scripts in the GUI
• Need to be able to delete outputs in the GUI
• Discovered what my time difference problem was last night. The date object were reading a 24 hour dateTime as a 12 hour dateTime without and AM/PM. This meant that all the dates were AM, which made things really odd in the afternoon.
• Had a good demo with Anne
• Created a chart for the LDAT folks for tomorrow’s meeting
• Creating a PublishDataObject for exchange between the client and server. Will use this for the basis of deleting published data.

• Shielded or shortened all signal wires
• Shield needed to be grounded to motor controllers ground.
• Seems much more predictable now.  The wires leading to strain gauges are still a bit too long and picking up interference but its hard to make them any shorter.  Remaining interference will have to be filtered out.
• Strain gauges were going haywire all day not sure if its because the wires were loose.  It does seem that the Wheatstone bridge can only be hooked up one way.  For some reason it seems if you change which SG goes to signal negative or positive it unbalances the bridge.  Does not really make sense considering there really is no difference but I ran into this symptom many times.
• Now that all the hardware problems should be solved or as good as they will get at the moment i can finally get back to software side.

• Attempted to make motor stop before stalling by setting speed to 0 whenever force reaches a certain threshhold.  This doesn’t work very well.  I think its because it is still trying to get to the position as it.
• Changing the way the motion is set up or using a get current position may fix the problems I was having.
• Reduced length of some wires that are hard to shield.  Noticed some improvement.
• Strain gauges are a bit more sensitive with the shielded wires had to turn down the gain.

8:00 – 4:30

• Discussions with John W and Mike C about the new dataset and hours until the end of the FY
• Discussions about integrating with LDAT. Michelle (?) is becoming quite our champion. I demo’s to several people and it looks like we should be able to tie directly into LDAT data
• More autorunning scripts. Could be done! Testing over night.
• 10:45 demo at Anne’s tomorrow.

7:30 – 3:30

• JW is back from vacation
• Mike C is setting up a new ingestor. Hopefully, he’ll be able to run it himself
• Demo today at noon with S14. Will add notes tomorrow
• 4:00 iPhone appointment
• Working on autorunning of scripts

Apparently I can only connect to this log from within the network.  I tried from home a few times and kept getting connection reset.

Thursday:

Steps for preparing strain gauges:

• Warm resin to room temp
• Sand surface that will have SG attached
• Clean with acetone until the Q-tip doesn’t get black anymore
• apply conditioner
• neutralize
• Apply resin and wait for it to dry
• Apply second layer of resin, attach strain gauge and allow to dry
• Test resistance with tester
• Cover with polyurethane
• Protect connections with silicone

Cleaned up code a bit from when I changed it

Friday:

• Second SG stick was ready to use.  Noted a lot of problems with calibration and consistency.
• Phil recommended averaging samples to clean up the signal inconsistency
• Showed it to Clift and he said that the signal wires needed to be shielded because the magnetic field from the motors were causing interference.

Saturday:

• Attached shielded cable to the SGs and Wheatstone bridge.
• This helped a lot with holding the calibration and consistency.
• There are signal wires going from the wheatstone bridge to the amplifiers which are still not shield which may help with lowering the inconsistencies when not in the dead zone as well as it still loses calibration sometimes.
• Averaging the samples is probably still a good idea even if it seems to be working perfectly(which it isn’t now) without it.
• Started reading OpenGL book but haven’t tried any tutorials yet.