Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #11228



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "Mike Kulesza" mikekulesza@hotmail.com
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 23:29:27 GMT
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Silicon Cell report


What about "sawing" through them with a very sharp hobby knife, or
realllllyyyy fine toothed saw, (ie: a metal nail file edge might work). And
the cutting must be done slowly, with minimum vibration. Hmmmm... I just
saying my ideas.


>From: Richard Piotter
>Reply-To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
>To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
>Subject: Re: Silicon Cell report
>Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 16:45:50 -0600
>
>Can you solder to the shattered pieces. I have 4 panels in cases. All
>from the Rat Shack, and ALL DIFFERENT!!!
>
>Sone have horizontal lines, some vertical, and one has a grid of them,
>about 160 to be exact, but I think it's for better collection of
>current. (more surface area touching conductor). 2 of those have the
>solder terminal linibng the lenth of the short side, and the other 2
>lining the full lenth of the long side.
>
>Radio Shack's consistency over the years in these panels seems non
>existent! still, as long as you split it with the solderable contact
>down the middle, you might be able to do this I personaly would just use
>a diamond cutting bit to do the job. They shouldn't be too dificult to
>find. I'm not so certain I want to cut those anyway though. It'd be very
>dificult to cut the ones that have the positive terminal on the short
>side. I'm almost afraid to mess with it! you must also consider cutting
>following the conductive strips
>
>
>BUDSCOTT@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > I had five bucks lyin' around and really wanted to check out these solar
> > cells, hey if your only buyin a couple its cheaper to do it without
>shipping
> > charges. These cells are 2 x 4 cm and the width of a sheet of paper,
>they're
> > really really thin! the cells have a positive strip which runs along the
> > bottom edge of each side, front negative, back positive. the output is
>.45v
> > at .3A not mA. here is where the fun is, lets make the cell just enough
>to
> > operete a 1381J or L, but with still enough current to make it worthy of
> > being used in place of a sunceram (which still rock the house). which
>brings
> > me to my question, is amperage directly related to surface area, y=kx. I
> > would believe so, but don't want to try it out for myself. as for
>voltage,
> > the voltage of the cell, when split up, would multiply by the number of
> > segments where s is #segments and .45 is votage meaning VDC = .45s? see
>what
> > i'm sayin, i put it algebraiclly for all you left brain people whomever
>that
> > may be. anyways, back to the usage of the cell, these would make cool
>cells
> > for a pvore, but what needs to be done is have a mount for it, something
>flat
> > so the cell won't break. They come in one of those nifty little plastic
> > cases, which makes me think ROBOT IDEA! if all my above asumtions are
> > correct, break the cell into 6 segments, hook 'em in a series, mount
>them to
> > the inside of the clear plastic container, mount the circuitry on the
>inside,
> > put the large cap on the outsid and mount motors on the outside. sorry
>for
> > being lengthy but i thought i'd give you the whole story.
> >
> > -Spencer
>
>--
>
>
>Richard Piotter The Richfiles Robotics & TI web page:
>richfile@rconnect.com http://richfiles.calc.org
>
>-- Make Money by Simply Surfing the Net or responding to E-Mail!!!
>-- Click below!!!
>
>http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=ATL147
>http://www.spedia.net/cgi-bin/dir/tz.cgi?run=show_svc&fl=8&vid=329630

______________________________________________________



11229 Wed, 1 Mar 2000 18:34:15 EST [alt-beam] Re: Radio shack solar panels beam@sgiblab.sgi.com Toby503@aol.com I pretty new in BEAM. Just giving an idea

Rusty



11230
11231 Tue, 29 Feb 2000 21:26:02 -0800 [alt-beam] Re: mini walker "'beam@sgiblab.sgi.com'" Wilf Rigter

Hi Ben,

Here is a blast from the past (June 99) : the LIGHT WALKER 1.0 design as
shown in the attached schematic. In this design the SE function has been put
inside the microcore loop. From another perspective this is a pentacore
design. The 1381 acts like a combination Nu, PNC and SE trigger. Note that
the 74HC14 and AC240 are powered up all the time. Normally the 4Nv outputs
will all be high, the motors will be stopped and no current will flow. The
solar panel will charge up the main cap and also the memory cap of the 1381.
The memory cap ensures that the 1381 input voltage will not drop during the
first process interval when the motor current starts to pull down the main
capacitor voltage. When the 1381 fires it "injects" a process into the first
Nv with a rising edge. This process ripples through the other Nvs and when
the process reaches the last Nv it resets the memory cap of the 1381. This
sequence is a 4Nv process cycle which causes the bot to advance by one step
on each leg. Next the solar panel charges the main capacitor and the 1381
memory cap back up and when fully charged the 1381 triggers the next process
cycle. If there is enough charge on the main cap the SE fires almost
immediately and the walker continues uninterrupted. This embedded SE design
can be extended to 6Nv or 8Nv designs as well.

The reverser circuit is quite a nice solution to the problem of early
reverser time out when the LIGHT WALKER only walks intermittently. To avoid
this problem, the reverser memory capacitor is discharged in steps, one
process cycle at time, with about 7 or 8 cycles required to return to
forward motion regardless of the time between steps. In addition the
reverser circuit switching is synchronized with the start of each cycle to
avoid the typical gait recovery time associated with asynchronous reverser
circuit switching. This synchronous reverser idea can be applied to many
walker designs and imho is a nice contribution to the state of the art of
BEAM tech.

The LIGHT WALKER still needs tactile inputs. Perhaps it can be left as an
exercise for the reader to complete the full LIGHT WALKER design.

enjoy

Wilf Rigter mailto:wilf.rigter@powertech.bc.ca
tel: (604)590-7493
fax: (604)590-3411


<>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Hitchcock [SMTP:beh01@uow.edu.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 7:38 PM
> To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
> Subject: Re: mini walker
>
> Here's an idea:
>
> You don't need a SE!
> Just attach the 1381 to power and ground, andconnect the output of the
> 1381 to the input of the microcore via a normal microcore cap. The 1381
> gets to its switch-on voltage, introduces a process, and bang off it goes.
> No need to enable or disable the 240. And have the process fall of f the
> end of the core - four neurons in a chain. This means that you get to
> gang two gates together per coil lead - two gates ganged up would give you
> enough juice to drive the walker, methinks. And the nice thing about this
> is that you only need one chip, one 1381, four caps and resistors, plus
> your coils and solar panel and storage cap and that's it!
>
> Too easy.
>
> Ben
>
> > I was thinking about using a microcore instead of a master slave bicore.
> > Either way, can pulses be stopped and resumed from their last position?
> > I'm wondering if an Nv chain that is initiated by the SE firing would
> > work. Switch the source to a different coil and polarity on each of 4
> > steps, and then fall off the end. Allow the SE to charge to full. It'd
> > store enough power for a complete step cycle. If there were enough
> > power, I assume the SE could continuously fire the start of the Nv
> > chain, till light levels drop and it would then rely on firing
> > intermittently, till it looses it's charge again.
> >
> > Has anyone made such a circuit before???
> >
> > Would the Chloroplast be suitable for this purpose, and how can I get a
> > single pulse out of it, with a second sustained pulse going to the
> > driver (I suppose 2 chips would be acceptable, if necessary). If the
> > driver powers the coils, then would it be possible to attach it to the
> > steady voltage output of the Chloroplast SE and the pulse to the
> > trigger, and have a very high dropout level, so it shuts down right
> > away, waiting for the next charge before refiring???
> >
> >
> > Ben Hitchcock wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > > What
> > > > would be best? I thought of an SE type system with a timed trigger.
> Is
> > > > there a way to create an SE that triggers different pulse outputs in
> > > > chain? I'll play with circuits. That's what we're here for anyway.
> New designs!
> > >
> > > How about using a shift register? Attach the SE to an enable pin on
> your
> > > motor driver (74xx240) and also to the clock pin on the shift
> register.
> > > You'll also need to attach the fourth (or is it fifth?) pin of the
> shift
> > > register to the data in
> > > pin, and somehow start a pulse when there aren't any in the stream...
> > > you'd need four diodes (one from each gate on the shift register) a
> > > resistor and an inverter to create a pulse if none existed in the
> chain.
> > >
> > > Maybe a shift register isn't such a good idea after all... 2 IC's
> instead
> > > of one... Perhaps ye olde microcore could be adapted to do it.
> > >
> > > Good luck!
> > >
> > > Hmm maybe the bot won't be able to steer using this setup. no matter,
> it
> > > will look pretty cool.
> > >
> > > Ben
> >
> > --
> >
> >
> > Richard Piotter The Richfiles Robotics & TI web page:
> > richfile@rconnect.com http://richfiles.calc.org
> >
> > -- Make Money by Simply Surfing the Net or responding to E-Mail!!!
> > -- Click below!!!
> >
> > http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=ATL147
> > http://www.spedia.net/cgi-bin/dir/tz.cgi?run=show_svc&fl=8&vid=329630
> >
>
>
> --
> Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.



Attachment: lightwalker.gif

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