Spiked's Content

#59430 Windows on Devices? When?

Posted by Spiked on 29 July 2014 - 05:39 AM in General Discussion

I have not received one, although I did eventually get an email suggesting I would. I followed their IRC chat for a few days and it was very quiet.

Ms was also supposedly at nearby at a coffee shop (in Seattle) with boards, but when I attempted to drive there, I could not find parking (and I am handicapped) so I came back home.

I believe the intention is to provide firmware that will allow non ms-versions to run the MS dev kits. But that will be sometime AFTER initial release of MS dev kit versions.

#59612 High Resolution Quad Encoder Problem

Posted by Spiked on 08 August 2014 - 07:00 PM in General Discussion

Well that is certainly in the right direction, but a ways off from what I want to do fully.

So im guessing (sorry im a software guy) this is a chip I add externally? and it eliminates the need for tying up interrupt pins on the Xduino (x=ar or net)? which would be helpful since the Arduino only has 2 from what I've read, and the Netduinos cant really depend on accurate timing.

I still would like to add accurate hc-sr04 reading to the mix. Im guessing this does not do that?

BTW amazon and spark fun has never heard of a LSI7366. But I see a data sheet on it (LS7366).

Then I need to figure out SPI ? And use a select for each encoder chip I assume?

Is this easier than using a FPGA?

#59609 High Resolution Quad Encoder Problem

Posted by Spiked on 08 August 2014 - 06:19 PM in General Discussion

"Doing fast rates with something like a kalman filter can be very hard to implement in a micro-processor."

Which is why I am constantly amazed that over 8 years ago (July 2006) LEGO was able to build it into a kids toy, for $99, and nothing has been able to touch it yet that I have identified (as in available and working out of the box). 3 servo motors fully synced with PID control from encoders, while running an interpreted but multithreaded user programs, on an ancient ARM. Oh, and 4 sensors of about any connection type. Sigh.

So I ordered a cyprus FPGA to explore this aspect of the hobby, not having any luck making the Netduino or an Arduino do what the 8 year old LEGO can do. Any pointers to learning FPGAs?

#59617 High Resolution Quad Encoder Problem

Posted by Spiked on 08 August 2014 - 07:24 PM in General Discussion

I know nothing about that. So, cant use or comment on something I do not know about. Apparently it is a secret?

#59623 High Resolution Quad Encoder Problem

Posted by Spiked on 08 August 2014 - 08:57 PM in General Discussion

That's great new. Chris, when will support for this be added?

#60012 High Resolution Quad Encoder Problem

Posted by Spiked on 06 September 2014 - 07:46 PM in General Discussion

Ok, I give. Ive spent weeks and $100s getting no where.

Ready to pay someone who can make it work ... any takers?

#59677 High Resolution Quad Encoder Problem

Posted by Spiked on 12 August 2014 - 09:33 AM in General Discussion

I don't know if I will do any thing with PSoC, but the break-away USB-Serial Controllers will prove useful.

lol. yeah for $4 what the heck.

I made some progress on my project. I was able to get 'good enough' stuff from the Netduino, which is great as it is the environment I am more comfortable with.

So I'm closing in on a LEGO NXT like Netduino component for my robot. Dual encoded / regulated motor control, with ultrasonic sensors tightly coupled. The component will be implemented as a Pilot (move/steer), similar to those found in LeJOS and other Robot software.

I will still look at the FPGA eventually, as I always wanted to explore them.

#59626 High Resolution Quad Encoder Problem

Posted by Spiked on 08 August 2014 - 10:16 PM in General Discussion

Someone I have respect for uses PSoC a lot, so I ordered their dev board - $25ish.

http://www.cypress.com/?rID=77780

I'd figured it would be a starting point. I downloaded that PDF and will check it out. Thanks.

#61039 Socket error #10055 (WSAENOBUFS)

Posted by Spiked on 21 December 2014 - 06:22 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Its open source now, just fix it yourself isnt that what open source is all about? broken by default� is what I always say.

But otherwise, it is a tiny processor. You can not keep it 100% busy and expect it to also handle hardware level tasks, like interrupts from an ethernet port. I do remember seeing something like 21 bytes being the difference between trying to immediately send vs buffering data. Actually I think I remember 21 being discussed as a mistake, it was suppose to be 20 but the code was off by 1. Then again that may have been something similar but entirely elsewhere. But the more important, code that choses immediate vs delayed, especially in small embedded systems, is quite common.

#60373 WebRequest Timeout property doesn't work

Posted by Spiked on 09 October 2014 - 04:18 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

I have heard it is a known bug in MF. So maybe fixed next MF release. It is probably related to why they are redoing the TCP stack, among other things.

#61431 raspberry pi 2

Posted by Spiked on 02 February 2015 - 12:28 AM in General Discussion

I'm happy to see the news as well. But I have to see an org chart before I even think of committing to a Software choice. As much as I am a fan of windows development and .Net, I will start with linux for sure.

I've also just announced product, aimed at the Pi B++, the timing could not be better.

http://www.spiked3.com/?p=3651

#61436 raspberry pi 2

Posted by Spiked on 02 February 2015 - 07:22 AM in General Discussion

RPi is a proven device, also available in an embedded format (compute board). They probably sold more today in 11 seconds than all others combined forever. It's barely second all time to Arduino, which IS a prototype platform like the Netduino. If the hype to open source .Net to linux et al ever happens, it's just 1 more thing on a successful product regardless, but certainly not a dependency.

#61603 raspberry pi 2

Posted by Spiked on 13 February 2015 - 12:59 AM in General Discussion

The netduino is more like an arduino. To compare it to pi is silly to begin with, other than price. The former is a prototype platform, the latter is an end user computer.

I see the PI 2 has sold out for the second time in a matter of minutes. It must have something good about it; if nothing else a good reputation. Reputation is important in making business decisions, not so important for playing.

#58574 Neduino object oriented motor control in C#

Posted by Spiked on 05 June 2014 - 06:18 PM in Project Showcase

I was looking for your design, I did not find it.

#60274 enc28j60_lwip_recv: input alloc packet failed

Posted by Spiked on 28 September 2014 - 02:48 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Lock requires any object as a reference only. So you can use any reference variable that both places that need to lock have access to. It is often easy just to create something for this purpose then in both place surround your code with; lock(lockObject) { ... }

Make sure you do it at a logical place, like before a transaction starts, but not too early or for too long.

namespace junk
{
    public class Program
    {
        static Object lockObject = new Object();
        public static void Main()
        {
            new Thread(thread1).Start();
            new Thread(thread1).Start();
            new Thread(thread1).Start();
        }

        static void thread1()
        {
            lock (lockObject)
            {
                // ... do stuff
            }
        }
    }
}

#60238 enc28j60_lwip_recv: input alloc packet failed

Posted by Spiked on 26 September 2014 - 12:18 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

One thing that caught my eye was calling request.dispose, after using it with a using statement - i'm not sure of the consequences of a double dispose.

#61737 Question comparing Netduino vs Arduino

Posted by Spiked on 27 February 2015 - 02:32 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

At Microsoft's current pace it shouldn't take any longer than another 25 years or so to resolve them. I too switched to Arduino a while back, after real life experience. It wasn't the IDE though. I still use Visual Studio.

#60337 Question comparing Netduino vs Arduino

Posted by Spiked on 03 October 2014 - 03:14 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

You are confusing 'fast' with 'apparently fast because it does nothing for you'. I agree sometimes appearance is important, but it's not the chip. The Netduino chip runs circles around anything on an Arduino; at very least its 32 bit vs 8.

I've said it before and I'll reiterate; the Netduino targets developers who are familiar with the .Net environment, or who would prefer to learn with a .Net environment and there are plenty of reasons to. .Net/C# being a modern managed object oriented platform is top on the list.

Indeed there are times when raw speed is more important, and times when it is not, and a lot of time in the middle where it is just a matter of knowing how to achieve apparent speed. Sometimes figuring out how to make the Netduino look fast is the enjoyable challenge we are looking for.

I have a particular example; I wanted something that could read quadrature encoders from 2 motors, control both of their speeds and incorporate 2 ultrasonic sensors to prevent running into things. It connects to the main computer and receives 'commands' via ethernet. The commands I send it are high level; 'move 14.3 meters' 'turn 43.2 degrees right' 'move 17 meters in reverse' all the while telling me exactly where you are 15 times per second. Can an Arduino do this? Probably, if I started now, in about 18 years ( I have no embedded development experience, no hardware experience, 25+ years Application software experience with C#). While I have cussed it several times, I expect I can accomplish it on the Netduino considerably faster (Actually it is about 90% complete, in a couple of months). Believe me, if I could buy an off the shelf device that did this (like a LEGO could 10 years ago) I'd be happier. But I can't, so this is my fastest way to something I want to move my Robot, without hacking hardware and learning a new profession in depth.

I do not follow your comment about interrupts. My application uses 6, the Arduino has 2. I would have to stack 3 Arduinos, plus probably a 4th with an ethernet shield, to get the same capabilities. These are real interrupts, they can not be missed 'whenever' like software versions do. Want a good example? Try using a software serial port while you are doing other things with your Arduino.

http://www.spiked3.com

#60104 Question comparing Netduino vs Arduino

Posted by Spiked on 13 September 2014 - 05:05 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Lousy toolchain? What is your criteria? That it must look archaic? That must be it if you are thinking uecide is in the ballpark.

Sure there are a lot more imbedded level code samples/examples for the Arduino. It has a large community with that as the focus. The Netduino community is rather small and young so far. But there is no comparison between the languages Wiring (C++ like) and C# or even VB.Net. .Net is decades ahead of Wiring language wise.

An then are NO high level functions provided by an Arduino. The code you write is all that is running, tiny, simple and mostly fast.

.Net provides much greater functionality. No need to use pointers (yes, they are a bad thing), Actual remote debugging, (not printf to a serial port), collections similar to STL (which I have never seen on an Arduino), actual documentation (up to date and not some stale automatically generated help files) .... and many more I can't think of at the moment. These are provided at a cost of speed, but they are usually are written in a manner that is far more efficient than anything you are going to write that does the same thing.

And now let's talk IDE. The absolute worst case is Visual Studio may not be the best anymore, only tied as the best (Eclipse). And in a .Net environment, you can not even say that, since Eclipse does not do .Net debugging. Refactoring built in (change a variable name one place, the IDE takes care of it everywhere, automatically) Find definitions and references to variables, not some limited text search and replace, that does not consider the language syntax. Project management without the need to manually edit and manipulate build/make files, although that is an option if desired. And my favorite, it does not look like it was written by dinosaurs in COBOL. Having a professionally thought out IDE is especially important when you spend 8+ hours a day writing code. Visual Studio has been maturing for 25+ years, from a company that knows a little about how people use computers (like it or not, still 87% market share, down from 95%).

#58601 Send data to and recive data from N+2

Posted by Spiked on 06 June 2014 - 07:03 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Sure sounds like it should see the publish messages, but you sound like you are on the right track. Let us know how it goes.

#58590 Send data to and recive data from N+2

Posted by Spiked on 06 June 2014 - 07:23 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Which broker are you using? I grabbed one called mosquito. Not knowing much about them I thought having a python binding would be helpful. I don't remember having to do anything special to set it up. Just ran the install, and it was an autostarted service. Check to make sure it is running as a service (if you are using mosquito).

I just got 2 i2c devices going - and will post that in a new topic in a minute.

Had to think about this a little more ....

How do you know they are not arriving at the broker?

There needs to be a client somewhere subscribing to the topics that will receive them. I'm not sure I really see any activity on the broker - actually its a service with no console or UI, so I'm sure I don't see anything there

#58494 Send data to and recive data from N+2

Posted by Spiked on 31 May 2014 - 09:19 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

http://www.spiked3.com/?p=421

has my learning code to date.

#58466 Send data to and recive data from N+2

Posted by Spiked on 29 May 2014 - 04:21 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Yes. It is a brokered message passing system. Strikes me as identical to ROS internal stuff. Clients subscribes to topics, and clients can publish topics. Either side can be a client. I ran both directions in simple tests, at the same time. Master asked for an update by publishing a request. Slave (Netduino) published accelerometer data via a JSON string. I'm not sure if there was a 'reply' to publish supported, as in a blocking publish, but I don't think you would want that anyhow, on loosely coupled systems.

BTW, I was unable to get the micro frameworks supplied DPWS samples (mf version of wcf) to run. It looks like they encountered an error in the MF implementation - multicast udp not supported?. It seems to me that you should able to get around that not using 'discovery', but I did not want to spend much time on it just to run into the next problem, and no one spoke up and said it would work. M2Mqtt worked first try, seems to be currently actively maintained, I was impressed.

Other projects I ran across had not seen activity in years, and maybe that is because they work and don't need fixing, but that is seldom the case in my experience. I got the popular web server to run after a few code tweaks, but I would end up just making it look like M2Mqtt anyhow.

#58642 Send data to and recive data from N+2

Posted by Spiked on 09 June 2014 - 12:11 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

No, I haven't - other than the loosely coupled idea; send a request, send a reply.

Is there something explicitly 2-way? I'll have to look.

Glad it is working. It worked well for me without much effort also. I plan on using it as a main component of my learning robot project, knowing that if I swap a piece later (the main processor or netduino I/O), i will not have to re-write everything.

CAD files sent to be cut this week http://www.spiked3.com/?p=338

#58461 Send data to and recive data from N+2

Posted by Spiked on 28 May 2014 - 08:00 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

MQTT worked great for me on simple first tries. I ran a broker called mosquito, but I think the M2Mqtt guys have one as well.

http://m2mqtt.wordpress.com/

Throw in some JSON and it is cakewalk.

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