les actualités
Actualités 02
11-24-17 SCROLL UP AND DOWN FOR MORE ARCHIVED INFO.11/12/2017
Thinking of bringing Domino Topple back from ten plus years ago, but with all Raspberry PI computers. One PC (software specific). One Raspberry Zero-W computer. Giving the website a complete makeover.
π RASPBERRY PI3 (WIDE)
1. Wide picture.
2. Streaming wide angle camera.
π RASPBERRY PI3 (GAME)
1. Game specific camera
2. Streaming camera on game.
3. Staging area music.
π RASPBERRY ZERO W (ROVER)
1. Streaming Wifi camera for desktop rover.
π RASPBERRY PI3 (AUDIO)
1. Streaming live game audio.
π RASPBERRY PI3
1. Act as public website server.
π RASPBERRY Model B rev 2
1. Act as public relay array server.
§ SONY VGN-UX180P
1. Needed for Telecommander software to control desktop rover.
Γ DESKTOP ROVER
1. Releases from docking station after dominoes fall.
11-26-17 10:00 pmLaunching with batteries for Desktop Rover on order and no sound solution yet. Created a "Please stand by"
page when dominoes need to be set back up.
12-01-17It was jumping the gun thinking I could launch this when I did. Forgot that local IP addresses won't translate to the public world wide web. That means now my cameras have to have unique port numbers. Found a security issue also not password protecting my camera config pages. Three nights of obsessive craziness until I learned what "comment out" means when it comes to modifing config files. Solved my issues listed above. Today I should have 2 cameras available on the world wide web.
12-03-17Three cameras up on the public webpage now. Seems the batteries and audio card deliveries have been delayed. Audio and battery pack are the last items on my objective list.
12-06-17Rover should be ready now, it advanced 10 paces before the battery ran down. Images were clean compared to years ago when they would fuzz out some when the car advanced. Thinking the battery was not fully charged. I need to find a power supply in my stock pile of power supplies to keep the standby battery charged and ready.
Telecommander software is set to run 45 paces forward.
11-24-17-4.8 volt batteries 2100 mAh ordered for this today (one as a charged backup). Docking station wiring is still pending.
-Microphone input board for WIDE needs to be found somewhere in the universe. Have a request into a company today. May end up using usb input for microphone, not settling for that just yet.
-Automatically enable HTTPS on your website with EFF's Certbot, deploying Let's Encrypt certificates... they make is sound easy. Have not had success with this yet.
-Want a link to a guest book or something similar for those who want to leave a comment.
11-26-17Need to populate the image gallery when images become available.
11-27-17Found an audio card and ordered it this morning. $15.00 with shipping.
12-01-17No batteries or audio card found on my doorstep yet.
12-06-17Microphone circuit board arrived, but I need it to stand off the main board farther to clear the heatsink. Ordered a 40 pin header extender, arriving 12-09-17. Hope to make audio happen with FFMPEG/FFSERVER.
12-12-17Stacking header finally arrived for the audio card, but the pins are not long enough. Ordering a different stacking header. Batteries arrived and the site should be operational minus the sound.
12-17-17Second sound card (board) header stack arrived today.
Have to say I was excited that this is the last piece of my website while I was working on following the install directions, but the directions did not match what I saw in my config file and in the end the board is not working. I have had success hearing back from the manufacturer, so I contacted them and I am waiting to hear back.
I also ordered some art infused with aluminum to hang as maybe a focal point for the camera that gives a WIDE angle image. It potrays dominoes---what else would you expect.
12-23-17Getting an audio server to work has become one of the biggest challenges. I ordered a $30.00 audio injector board when I began to have doubts about the $15.00 board I ordered. I already have an option with the camera server I am using now, it is set to use the default audio card. The 15.00 board is the default and I was able to get sound output from the LINE OUT port, but microphone capture not working.
My site from years ago had a counter that indicated how many days since the last game winner. I will consider that again once more site traffic occurs.
12-24-17Second audio board arrived yesterday. Worked without one hitch. It's a built in mircophone so I wondered about it's range, but so far it seems great! www.audioinjector.net/rpi-hat
Thought I was home free, it works great over my local area network, not so much connecting from the world wide web. Going to have to make it a secure website and or webpage I guess. Happily I have made some progress understanding how that works with self-signed certificates and keys. The whole site being secure, on the other hand, remains a challenge.
Got audio to work with one webpage being kind of secure. It's secure enough to make it work after all I am not looking for credit card information. The problem is that camera and audio from the same Raspberry PI is not ideal for this application, so I will have to get another RPI to handle the audio. I will use some of my year end bonus money for my forth RPI3.
12-30-17My Windows XP software started to not boot fully. I could in safe mode and restored to an earlier restore point, but no dice. The heat sink wouldn't stay on the proccessor either so I opted to ditch the Sony micro computer. Took a long time to set up another computer with XP. Kills me that it takes so long. I am used to Linux Puppy and the Raspbian used for Raspberry PI. I have Windows 10 also with 16 speedy GB of ram.
Set up audio on a Rasberry by itself, but it seems video has to be part of the stream. Oh well, what's one more camera added to the mix. I hoped to have everything working before the 1st of the year. Audio is all that is pending.
12-31-17I ran to Micro Center today and purchased another camera. I was able to get sound through my cell phone!!!. Sounds much like success when I hear those relays fire. The old (legacy) Dell wants to have the monitor on all the time. I am sure it is due to my hacking of a mouse (computer mouse, don't alert PETA). Purchased a $25.00 refurbished monitor to remote my laptops desktop to, but I only got as far as duel monitors.
The long and the short of it is that I reached the goal of getting all to work by the end of the year.
01-01-18Function + F8 is all I had to do to get monitor to switch. Thanks World Wide Web! Getting visitors is next challenge. It's that I want visitors, for sure, but not too many or I will be spending all my time setting up dominoes...
01-04-18Seems the relay server stops after some days. The board has GPIO pins for the older Raspberry PI's. I will have to nurse it along until another option presents itself.
01-07-18I increased the power supply to the Raspberry Model B that serves the relay control and it still lasted all of 1.5 days before it stopped. I just stopped overclocking the CPU to see if that helps. I also ordered another Raspberry PI 3 to replace the Model B. I hope that will fortify this weakest aspect of my renovated site.
Shut down GAME Raspberry before removing a 2TB usb drive and when attempting to boot up again, something clitched and it would not boot. Wished I had back up images of all my Raspberry's, but I don't so I re-created the whole drive image from scratch and after 40 minutes I was done.
01-14-18Set the RELAY computer up as a RPI 3B now. The sever program would stop after a few days before on the MODEL B earlier Raspberry. I set off the chain reaction last FRIDAY with some workmates as we were waiting for our contact person to arrive at our job site. Two issues found: 1) the ROVER did not travel very far and 2) it's camera images did not change. As for issue 1 the battery pack was not fully charged I suspect and issue 2 may have been because one camera was set for 30 fps and it should have been 10 fps. Hogged up the bandwidth so the last cameras images (Rover) were edged out.
01-16-18Knocked domino's over this morning with one click. I was testing the relay server running on the new Raspberry PI3. Relay server seems more reliable, but time will tell. Discovered the ROVER camera power source needed to come in from the other side in order for the ROVER to make the curve at the corners. UV4L streaming server options made that modification possible because now the camera is turned 180 degrees. The domino dealers or tractors or as I call them... domino put puts are 10 to 12 years old and were used when I got them at thrift stores. The 6 that I have are not getting the job done setting up the dominos. I will look into seeing if they are still available.
01-17-18Yikes! The relay server went offline again. I found a server that uses NODE JS and an interface that lists all GPIO pins. I think I can make that work because the relay board manufacturer povides schematics. They recommended to me to have their provided server auto restart with a program every few days with a Cron job. I am not versed in that and it makes more sense to find a server that stays up and running.
01-18-18Seems once relays are accessed a few times the server stops and has to be restarted. Got my work cut out for me this weekend setting up a different web server and interface for the relays.
01-22-17Did not get to another RELAY SERVER option this last weekend. Have been keeping a close eye on the server running now and it has not failed. Even showed my site to a fellow workmate and later when home the RELAY SERVER is still up. Been kinda waiting for it to go south before I tackle a whole new web interface and make the adjustments to my main index.htm page.
01-27-18Changed over to another web interface for the relay controls. One reason for my delay is that I knew the graphics would not be the same size. A wee bit of scrolling solves that problem.
01-30-18The web interface and the NODE JS server for the relay control seems to be stable after some rockiness at the beginning. I monitor it once a day by moving the ball around on the plate. I used a JAVA based relay control server and web interface all those years ago and had good success with it.
02-03-18Been 7 days since I came up with another web interface for the relays and the server for it is still running. Remember to only use GPIO pins 4, 17 and 22. The others will spell GAME OVER for you.
02-18-18I see that this single development board is in the works,
going beyond Raspberry PI3 features. Odroid-N1
01-23-19Link to continued information about this site: https://thai.ooguy.com/doku.php?id=start
11-24-17 SCROLL UP AND DOWN FOR MORE ARCHIVED INFO. PI3 that I call GAME has a SanDisk Pixtor SDXC 64 GB with the latest Raspberry OS on it.
1. All Raspberry PI's have VNC viewer enabled (a must when you are working with 4 of them).
2. Tried VLC viewer as camera server, but was unreliable. Found info on UV4L Video4Linux raspicam driver after about 15 hours troubleshooting camera issue. All camera's are PI camera V2 8MP. Raspi-config option for memory split set to highest for GPU (256MB).
3. Resolution set to 720X480 at varied fps.
4. Clementine replaced Kodi as my personal music server when in the domino staging area. Kodi had security issues is what I found out.
PI3 that I call WIDE has the same OS, memory card and camera set up as GAME.
This is to be the live audio serving computer and the wide camera images,
but can't find an audio input board, and believe me I have been looking. Throughput
is a factor in needing a board and not using usb.
PI Zero(W) that I call ROVER is mounted on the r/c Desktop Rover. Had issues with getting the Wifi to work. Wrote 2 images before getting it to work with Jessie on a 16GB Micro SD card.
Tried motionEyeOS in between, but did not work. Feel good about all using UV4L raspicam drivers and memory split all set to the highest option. 15 fps at 720X480 on this one. Amazingly small and keeps up with its bigger brothers. Battery is ordered. Docking station design is still pending at the time of this entry.
PI model B revision 2 is used for relay control. 32GB memory card used along with a 4 relay board from Robogaia and the server software they make available. They made me a custom Python script to make the relays momentary and not latching, but I had a hardware solution in place thanks to my obession to get it to work the way I needed it to.
Sony VGN-UX180P had a CPU fan that was no longer available. I needed a computer to run Plantraco Telecommander software and the Sony fit the bill. I tore it apart and used one of the heatsinks being used for my Raspberry PI3 boards in an attempt to keep it running cool. I also have 2 socket 775 CPU fans being used to help keep it cool.
Webserver is on a Raspberry PI3 with SanDisk Pixtor SDXC 64 GB for the operating system and a Samsung EVO 128GB micro sdxc memory card used for the servers root directory (transfer speeds up to 100MB/s)
OpenElement 1.57 R9 is being used to create the web pages. It is a far cry from Microsoft Frontpage used 12 years ago to build the pages for my site. Taking me awhile to get the hang of it and satisfied with the resutls so far.
01-23-19Link to continued information about this site: https://thai.ooguy.com/doku.php?id=start
Actualités 03
04-08-18 SCROLL UP AND DOWN FOR MORE ARCHIVED INFO.Yesterday someone got the ball to drop through the hole, but the alignment was off and it did not start the chain reaction. Made that ajustment and should be okay now.
04-18-18Site was down yesterday due to a 4 hour power outage at my house.
05-20-18I know that the software interface runs out of memory that controls the relays. I purchased a Rock 64 single board computer with 3 times more Ram memory than the RPI 3, but could not get the software to work with the hardware. Odroid forum suggestion was for me to get it to work and share my results, but I am more of a follower of programming rather than a trail blazer. I am aware of the issue and will have something better in the future.
Got my sights on this:
https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-n1/odroid-n1
09:29 pm Now that my radio controlled tank with a Raspberry Zero on it for a camera has enough power (5VDC@6 AMP) that phase did not happen tonight. One domino got hung up on another one - seems they need to not be line up at such an angle moving forward.
07-03-18Noticed today the domino's were knocked down. Rover had an issue in that it did not get the command script that moves it forward.
07-22-18Rover does not have enough battery power at 5 vdc. Tried to share with WiFi Raspberry zero/w computer but it runs on 6 vdc. Ordered a battery and smart charger for it this weekend.
07-28-18Separate battery for the WiFi camera(Raspberry Zero/W)
and the Rover. Now that the Rover travels more than ever-had to modify the corners it has to navigate.
07-31-18Domino's were down when I got home from work. A tech I work with may have been the one. It's the reason I was not going to tell anyone I know personally, but in a sea of 1 billion web pages, tough to be discovered.
The upside is that I am working out bugs every time they are toppled. The Rover tank (WIFI camera transport) for the 1st time has navigated the two corners. I have another smart charger on its way for the Rover. I like that they indicate when the battery is charged and are designed not to over charge the battery.
08-01-18I ordered a used Axis IP camera with 2 way audio and will see if I can make it work with my Exacq Vision NVR (my manager at work gave it to me). Have to have audio if any video is made of the domino's falling. Going to double the RAM also.
The way moving forward in the industry is not to have to buy licenses in order to add a camera onto your NVR or purchase an upgrade to support a cameras firmware version (one customer had a license to add a camera, but had to pay money out to Exacq Vision in order to support the new camera firmware).
08-12-18Spent three nights trying to use this Windows 7 - 32 bit machine to act as a storage device for the Ip camera that supports audio I ordered for $38.00 on Ebay. I was so sure it was going to work I even doubled the RAM to 8Gb. Turns out I had to call a friend who has his own computer company. Shared directory addresses that Windows 10 has no problems with are troublesome for windows 7. I needed to use the local host Ip address and not the computer name. Got it set up to record with video and audio the domino's falling and am running motion record sensitivity tests this weekend.
11-14-18Trying to get the best relay control to work on a webpage and it works halfway sort of. Been reaching out for help, but not having to beat helpers away with a stick if ya know what I mean.
08-18-18Knocking my head , mostlty against walls of code, trying to get a different web interface working for the relays... just when I think I can put the game back online, the relay array that was used for the last interface does not work for the new interface. I can hear them change states but the terminals do not indicate a change.
The interface is done - and looks great even though it is kind of joined together and done rudimentary. If it works better than what I used before... that is what matters. I have to build some circuits tomorrow after a stop at AX MAN and that will determine if we can go online 08-19-18.
08-21-18I don't know what the dealio is, I made two circuits a year ago or so that would give me 5 volts dc - triggered from the Raspberry GPIO pins (which are 3 volts dc). The 5 volts is what I need to drive the relays that control the side mirror that pan and tilts the plate with the ball on it. I can't get anything like that to work again, can't find the information I used before. The hardware part now is as labor intensive as the software part. I ordered something from Canada tonight that I hope will solve the situation and get Domino topple back online. Peace out.
08-24-18Said to a co-worker today that if I could channel the time and effort spent getting relays to work with a new web interface... I could practically be president of the fire alarm company I work for. Got to the point where I was willing to pay someone (guy said he was busy until January) and/or someone from the Raspberry Forum just giving me the information I needed to make it work so my obsession could be put to rest.
Turns out WAY MORE SATISFACTION solving the puzzle myself with only three pointers in the right direction... working on it for 3 weeks. https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/
09-02-18From my sisters the image refresh rate for the game camera was horrible and later the next discovered that the audio portion of my site was streaming video at 30fps. I want it to be 1 fps. The issue arises when I don't modify setting after a reboot/power cycle. The remindy is to go to the config page and lock those setting in. I have now completed that on all camera servers also. No more having to remember after servers restart. Been checking the new relay controls and they have not failed once since their incorporation into the site. The video site when at my sisters house. Domino's glitched
and stopped. https://vimeo.com/dominotopple
09-03-18Was able to check the responsiveness of my site with my phone's signal strength at the bare minimum. It took 3 to 5 seconds for the video to catch up with the audio, but with a little effort I could have knocked over the domino's.
SIGNAL STRENGTH.
09-25-18The relay controls have been working better than expected. I don't "babysit" that aspect of my site any longer. I found an open source program that will allow me to stream to Twitch and record the Rover camera when the Rover makes its rounds, but I am waiting on a single board computer that I pre-ordered in last month... the new ship date now is October.
https://vimeo.com/291748256
09-28-18Commandeered the microphone to make a video of the Rover doing its thing, but for the second time since the idea, it did not work. Seems to work when I "bench test" the record the Rover video with audio plan. Not all 100MB jewel cases fell - have to keep it simple if I want it to work with some consistency. Found this Open Source program for broadcasting... the computer I am using until my new one arrives might not have enough mojo to make it work effectively.
https://obsproject.com/
10-01-18My singleboard computer that I pre-ordered back in Aug. 2018 shows "in stock" now on the website. With it I hope to record with audio the Rover making its rounds. Also got the idea to use LEGO'S and make a maze for the ball to travel through in order to drop into the hole. This week Lego's shoud arrive.
10-04-18I am painfully inept at knowing what's what with Lego products (would help if I hand picked from a store). Ordering on EBAY has been a two week process to get all ingredients.
10-12-18The configuration I first had with the Lego's was so difficult it took 10 minutes for me to dropdown one level. I have adjusted it now to be easier [ tech I work with beat that 1st configuration-not sure how-maybe black magic]
10-19-18Latte Panda Alpha arrived yesterday. Going to record Rover WiFi camera as it makes its rounds. I hijacked the audio for now until I make this recording. Computer is a fast little bugger running Windows 10 Pro.
10-26-18Rover recording stopped video after running along the 1st bench. It later had its tank track dislodge. I think that issue has been resolved. As for the video, if I reduce frame rate I might get the whole Rover adventure. ROVER WiFi CAM
Seeing some information on a single board computer that looks as if it will be on the cutting edge of what is new... ODROID
11-03-18Rover recorded its rounds to OBS studio for the 1st time. Jacked cpu usage setting up to ultrafast and will see if the experiment will repeat itself. I also bought a USB microphone for the Latte Panda computer (Blue Snowball from Best Buy).
11-05-18The ROVER CAM recording worked a second time after uping the CPU usage to ultrafast. Going to change it up for next time. https://vimeo.com/dominotopple/
11-12-18Can't seem to get complete adventure of Rover recorded a third time. Video hangs and acts like a refresh is needed.
Audio is okay. Going to take up this challenge again with a different computer...
Re: Brand New ODROID Single Board Computer
-Postby odroid » Thu Nov 08, 2018 11:37 am
-stmicro wrote:
I wanna buy a couple of H2 boards.
When do you guys start selling? When do you unveil the price and shipping date?
We will start the manufacturing process within a few days.
If everything goes well, we will start selling from November 20th and the first shipping date will be November 27th.
The price information will be available on November 20th too.
Please wait two more weeks.
11-18-18Read about some issues with OBS STUDIO stopping the video recording and still recording audio... that is what has been going on with trying to capture Rover escapades. Using NCH SOFTWARE now and will see if anything changes.
11-28-18The trial period ran out on the software mentioned above. Never had a full test with the ROVER because technical difficulties prevented it from moving (TWO TIMES!). I am thowing caution to the wind and I registered the software not knowing if it will fill all my video recording needs.
12-11-18I won't rest until I record the Rover trip around the benches. It is back to the proverbial drawing board. Enjoy these archived video's until the site resumes. https://vimeo.com/dominotopple
12-31-18The reason why Rover cam fails is the battery. Need 5vdc and the closest I could come without being 6vdc is 4.8vdc. I might chance 6vdc to see if I can get longer camera images after the Rover leaves its docking station. Will order new battery later this month. On a side note, got a Rock64 single board computer to act as a server for TiddlyWiki and not only is the drive it's on encryted so is the http connection. Took many hours to make it all work, but the satisaction of a job well done is a reward in itself.
01-23-19There has not been the following I had before back in the year 2006 or so. I will see what happens down the road, but being found in a sea of 1 BILLION web pages has proved to be the most challenging of my site makeover project. I like the look and feel of TiddlyWiki so I am only going to be making news updates here: https://thai.ooguy.com/doku.php?id=start
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