Sensors

For those interested in the Firgelli Linear Actuators, Mindsensors have started selling them as well now!  You can get the 50mm and the 100mm ones and they go for $50 and $55 respectively. Get them while they’re hot! You can find the Mindsensors product page here: [LINK].

Yet another new version (1.3) of the ROBOTC driver suite awaits your download from the usual source. Changes for this version include: New additions: Codatex RFID sensor driver + 2 test programs (thanks Sylvain + Oliver) Lego Temp sensor + 2 test programs (thanks Sylvain) Firgelli Linear Actuator + test program Mindsensors Power Meter + test program Fixes: drivers/common.h: Added ...

The programming of the NXTCam-V3 has begun in earnest now. AndyM has set up the Source Forge project and the first couple of developers (including yours truly) have been added.  It’s been set up so that each developer has his/her own branch of the source code to play with.  This way we shouldn’t be able to get in each other’s ...

My new toy arrived this morning.  It’s a beta version of the Mindsensors NXTCam v3.  This one is able to be reprogrammed by the user via USB, so you can tweak the way it handles all the visual information before sending it to the NXT.  Rather than relying on the standard firmware, you can now create your own.  I have ...

Mindsensors was kind of enough to send me one of their prototype sensors, the Power Meter, to play with.  It’s a sensor that allows you to measure, among other things, the current and voltage of anything you care to connect to it (within limits, of course).  The first thing that came to mind was building something that would log the ...

A new version (1.2) of the ROBOTC driver suite awaits your download from the usual source. Lots of internal changes in this version.  I’ve been working on removing all the work-arounds that were necessary for ROBOTC pre-2.0 when there was no unsigned byte type.  Only ROBOTC 2.00 or higher is supported by this version.  The upgrade is free, so there ...

On my continuing mission to take apart HiTechnic sensors and show you guys their guts, I present to you: The Gyro.  The little yellow/gold component on the right of the PCB is the actual gyro chip, the rest of the components most likely to deal with power conditioning.  There’s not a whole lot to tell about this board since there’s ...

Note: this is a revised version of the original.  There was a problem with the way the response was put in the array that held the original message sent to the sensor.  That wouldn’t be a problem if I hadn’t setup my code to retransmit that message over and over without setting it up each time.  The response would corrupt ...

In an earlier article I wrote, I tested how fast I could push the HiTechnic ProtoBoard and the MAX127 ADC under ROBOTC.  In a recent discussion with Deepak from Mindsensors, I2C speeds in ROBOTC on the NXT came up.  The questions arose about the most efficient read size for the NXT and if there was a ceiling or a cut-off ...

A new version (1.1) of the ROBOTC driver suite awaits your download from the usual source. Not as many changes in this release as with the previous one. Changes include: Added support for the Mindsensors Servo controller, up to 8 servos per controller. Added a new function to get the raw uncalibrated AD values from the sensors in the Mindsensors ...