Re: Bumpers etc.

[Cindy Wong <wongci@ecf.utoronto.ca>]

So, with regards to tomorrow...what can we show our beloved T.A.?

I'm seriously considering metal gears.  Fitting and sizing is stopping me.
Why did we decide on these stupid pulleys anyway???  

Sigh.

Cindy



On Tue, 14 Mar 2000, Tim Vanderhoek wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 14, 2000 at 02:22:45PM -0500, Cindy Wong wrote:
> > 
> > > 	From Cindy:
> > > 		Superglue (is it in the locker?)
> [...]
> 
> I have all of these things in my room.
> 
> Joyce, I think the glue is a very bad idea.  Please, please, (PLEASE!)
> talk to me before trying to glue these things into place so that I can
> explain why I am convinced it is a bad idea.
> 
> 
> Other news:
> 
> 1) The current pulleys don't work.  Even after I replaced the heat
>    shrink on the one and properly melted it, both sides still got
>    chewed-up too quickly.  I'm toying with the hypothesis that PWM
>    modulation of the motors causes the heat shrink to wear down faster,
>    but don't hold-out much hope for this hypothesis.  It looks pretty
>    weak.
> 
>    As Joyce saw today, the metal epoxy on the one pulley was chewed-up
>    almost immediately by the belt.  However, right now, I wonder if my
>    hypothesis about the metal epoxy somehow impregnating the heat shrink
>    and thus strengthening it was so far off.  I replaced both heat
>    shrinks for testing.  Both of them _seemed_ to wear faster than the
>    one that had the metal epoxy on it.  But this is a purely 100%
>    qualitative judgement, unfortunately.
> 
>    I tested the cog and belt that I purchased at Active.  The cog fits
>    onto the motor shaft quite nicely, but there's no way the two will
>    work together.  The cog just spins uselessly under the belt, even
>    with significant tension applied on the belt.  Unless we can find
>    belts that match the cog (or vice-a-versa, perhaps Surayai's
>    Lexan-based cog suggestion), it simply doesn't have a chance of
>    working.  The belt does adhere to the large pulley on the wheel
>    very (surprisingly) well, though.
> 
>    On the positive side, the belt is completely indestructible.  If we
>    can make it work, it will save us many replacement belts.
> 
> 2) There were no tip120s in stock at Supremetronic.
> 
> 3) I thought the left opto-encoders was broken.  I think maybe it
>    was: it had gotten mostly pulled out of the solder connections.  I
>    simply did some resoldering.  The left wheel also had a lot of play
>    in it, and I think that this is why the encoder on that side got
>    mauled twice (once at the lab, and then when I did a test-run today).
>    I tightened the appropriate nuts on the left wheel.
> 
>    However, the voltage supply to the left encoder is not working.  No
>    idea why.  Maybe a cold or loose solder connection?  It seems to be
>    failing at the source.  If I use the power supply from the
>    rightside encoder, it works.
> 
>    I'll give you (Joyce) the power supply board tomorrow to figure-out
>    what's up.  It's just a simple broken wire or loose solder
>    connection somewhere, so it shouldn't take too long to fix.
> 
> 4) There are only a couple of the small rubber belts left.  I didn't
>    realize this when I went shopping for Joyce today.  Next person to go
>    down to Active gets to buy them.  Buy many.  Don't let them charge you
>    more than 25cents per belt.  They're labelled at $1.00 but the old man
>    will give them to you for 25cents.  They're not worth $1.00 at the
>    rate that we chew them up.
> 
> 
> > > 	From locker/Tim:
> > > 		New sensors
> 
> 22sensors + 8ft*4strands-wire @ $40.  Got'em.
> 
> 
> > > guys hopefully) before Skule Nite ends.  After Skule Nite, Tim should come
> > > by and pick up the robot so that he could test the comp program.  If I am
> 
> TBH, I can give you a simple working comp program without doing any
> real testing at all...  Bouncing off walls is easy, and we've already
> acknowledged that this is going to be mostly a sop to the TA.
> 
> Nonetheless, I'd rather run the real Qubit and do some testing.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Signature withheld by request of author.
>