New Netburner MOD5270 carrier board does it all!

[Vernon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD75Pewj4gw

Since we are talking about servos - you probably want to know about radio control of servos. Can that be done with a Netburner MOD5270? After all, some things on the Internet of Things might move about the house or yard.

The answer is yes - I have developed Netburner to RC! While this is the original carrier board in the video, I had not done mine yet, I can obviously connect to the same pin as it is available (or I could change the software to use a different pin). The RC transmitter module is an upgrade replacement for one of those hand held RC transmitters with the two sticks that RC hobbyists use. It normally takes a PPM logic signal from the transmitter electronics but in this case the MOD5270 generates the signal so you can use a gamepad connected to a remote PC to do your RC. The final Superboard will have a DB-9 that you can plug the transmitter module into. This allows you to use common and cheap RC components to do your locally mobile robotics. See video above.

Another thing - while I don't have a video - is I can also do Netburner to Chevy OBDII. So you can put your car engine on line (while it is idling in the garage) and have a mechanic check selected diagnostic parameters from his PC.

[Vernon]

Got the parts for the potentiometer mount for wiper servo prototype #2. Much neater and much cheaper than the local machine shop fabrication and I wish I had thought of this before I wasted a week waiting for the machine shop. The Actobotics channel mount just happens to press fit on the nylon hub. I drilled the nylon hub and use two self tapping 6-32 screws to hold everything on. In addition the clamp hub is mounted to the bracket with two allen screws from the back. Since the potentiometer takes very little torque to drive - this will work great. All I need now are the two aluminum plates. That will take about another week.

[Vernon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAn2G1eFJas

Finally got the aluminum plates! Movie shows the more permanent and neater version of the Monster Wiper Motor RC servo controlled by my Netburner MOD5270 carrier board. This one uses the Dodge wiper motor and the Actobotics potentiometer drive adaptation.

[Vernon]

I now have day and night lighting effects! The worlds only MOD5270 model railroad (link in signature) is now even better with selectable day and night lighting - and the machine vision works in both modes. Press the night button and the ambient light falls to moonlight level and the building lights come on. Press day and you have the full previous illumination.

[Vernon]

Camera 2 at www.internetmodelrailroad.com now tracks the train when making automatic trips! Horizontal only has two postions because the camera can't be mounted high enough to see the curves - but it works well and vertical is great.

This is the only current operating internet model railroad in the entire world. And it is the only DCC internet model railroad with machine vision and a tracking camera in human history. Making model railroading great again!

[Vernon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j5b49QM_xM

I completed the really huge servo (video above). Mounted the electronics on the frame. That caused a problem and I discovered the leads were grounded in the motor. Investigation revealed that the external leads that I thought simply connected to the motor were actually the high and low speed inputs. To run the motor you apply 12V to one of those leads and ground. I was applying power across those leads and the large angle between the field magnets and the armature caused the tendency to hunt and high current. Rewired the brushes and now it works much better with a lot more torque and a lot less current. It has enough torque to fly a Cessna 150. I know because it has more torque than I do and I can fly a Cessna 150.

[Vernon]

This, getting my name on this display, was a real pain in the ass. I bought an Arduino 4 x 20 iic display because the price was great, about $5, and figured it would be simple. Found that there is no documentation. The idea is you connect it to your Arduino, down load the sketch, and write your text using their functions. Luckily the number on the chip on the I2C board was readable so I got the data sheet for that, it is an 8 bit port expander, and I also got the data sheet for the Hitachi HD44780 controller display. I got the port expander working and toggled one bit at a time to figure out where they went on the display. I then had to initialize the display in 4 bit mode because that is how it is wired. I had to do everything as if it was a parallel display and then wrote a function to display a character string. I had thought it might come up with a flashing cursor waiting for an ASCII input - but no joy. There is no intelligence in the adapter. Each character has to be split into two nibbles and written in two steps. The whole thing took about 10 hours.

Normally I would not put a local display on something that produced a web page (I would just look at the Kindle) but I figured that there could be an application and the display was super cheap. Really great for $5.

[Vernon]

Got the display totally dialed in! I even thought of a reason to have a display on a Netburner. Your website would telnet in with the forecast and any chicks who wanted to do you that day would log in. So you wake up to the temperature, humidity and the available chicks right on your nightstand! On a given day what could be more important than whether you are going to get laid or not? You could even have an algorithm to sort the chicks - a hot one you hadn't done yet would get a high score as would a high performance babe you hadn't seen in a while. Same old, same old would get a lower rating and the pick would appear in the bottom line. The code using my functions is below - I have full C formatting and it is simple to use! Variables don't make sense because I just used some for this test that were unused.
loopcount = 75;
sprintf(displaybuffer, "Temperature = %d", loopcount);
ShoDisplay ();
// ClearDisplay (); sets cursor top left and clears text.
speed = 22;
sprintf(displaybuffer, "Humidity = %d pct", speed);
SetCursor( 40 ); // second line
ShoDisplay ();
packcount = 3;
SetCursor( 20 ); // third line
sprintf(displaybuffer, "Chicks = %d", packcount);
ShoDisplay ();

[Vernon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA9lk4vnYPg

The internet of drums! Beating the Internet Drum (movie above) with my MOD5270 carrier board and my wiper motor servo! For the first time you can beat a drum over the internet! I successfully used it to summon my wife when I woke up - because I wanted coffee. No shouting across the house, just grab the phone!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mxoRwS1ikc

Another movie with an improved hammer. A wiper motor servo is the only thing that will really beat a drum - a quarter scale servo just wouldn't cut it.

[Vernon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6EYtLjyeOA

Is Scintillation a Sin? You won't know unless you watch this movie (link above)! Actually this is my new, soon to be online, MOD5213 and MOD5270 Donald Trump bomb sensor! If elected (about a 20% chance) he will have his little fingers on the big red button and you just know he will have to "get tough" and press it. This movie shows the means of detecting how bad the fallout will be where you are - and therefore how fast you will die. Always good to know right? A scintillator (explained in video) is an improvement on a Geiger Counter in that it can identify specific isotopes by measuring the energy of the emitted gamma photon. Background radiation may mask a small increase in CS-137 (a major component of bomb fallout) if all you have is a Geiger counter - but this device will pick that 662KEV electron volt photon out of the clutter and detect even a small increase. That will then be on-line at http://www.pahrumpgeigercounter.com.

A high speed comparator will trigger a one shot for events above 500KEV. The one shot will time out at 60 microseconds (typical pulse rise time with this device) and trigger a MOD5213 interrupt. That routine will use the MOD5213 A/D to measure the pulse height and count pulses of each value. If, for example, 853 comes off the A/D it will increment the value in an array - pulse[853]. A range of values will count as CS-137 disintegrations. I have a CS-137 source as shown in the movie and that will be used to calibrate. I had a circuit board made in China for a MOD5213 and I have to start putting parts in. That board will send data via RS-232 to the existing Geiger Counter MOD5270.