Our two problems...

[josh291]

Okay, here is the update. Today I remembered to comment out the bit in the Default_Routine() with pwms 1 and 2 which got the camera to work, however it would seem not completely. I remember last year the camera would move around until it found the light, currently all our camera does is center itself to the home position.

This is quite a bit further than we were last meeting. Today was spent pouring over all of the tracking code to figure out how to get it to "search." The majority of our time was spent looking at the T_Packet code(whatever a T_Packet is ) trying to figure out how to get our camera to search.

I'm using the streamlined version of Kevin's camera code, our third and hopefully final problem: How to make it start searching?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by josh291

I'm using the streamlined version of Kevin's camera code, our third and hopefully final problem: How to make it start searching?

One extremely important thing: make sure you have a fully charged backup battery plugged in. Without it, the camera won't talk, and the servos won't move.

Depending on which way you mounted the camera in the pan/tilt assembly, you might have to change the sign of the pan direction definition in the code. You can tell when this is necessary by seeing the camera "hide" from the light rather than seek it.

[josh291]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

One extremely important thing: make sure you have a fully charged backup battery plugged in. Without it, the camera won't talk, and the servos won't move.

Depending on which way you mounted the camera in the pan/tilt assembly, you might have to change the sign of the pan direction definition in the code. You can tell when this is necessary by seeing the camera "hide" from the light rather than seek it.

Our camera does not move at all. Whether we have the light in front of it or not. We've also made sure the backup battery is charged.


The only thing that I still do no understand is the T_Packets. Also, when I define which serial port the camera goes into... Serial Port 1 is the programming and Serial Port 2 is the tether correct?

And I just noticed the CMU cam sub-thread... should I have put this there instead?

[Mark McLeod]

Serial port 2 is the one labeled "TTL" (not the tether) and depending on which camera port you connect to it usually requires the tiny TTL-converter chip that came packaged with, but separate from, the camera board.

You'll want to keep your PC connected to the Program port while you test the camera, so you can see the status messages displayed to tell you what's wrong (or right) with the camera.

Did you look at the T-packet description?
http://kevin.org/frc/CMUcam2_data_packets.pdf

Yea, CMUCam issues should be posted in the CMUCam sub-forum, but we'll forgive you.

[josh291]

I've finally got it all working.

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Serial port 2 is the one labeled "TTL" (not the tether) and depending on which camera port you connect to it usually requires the tiny TTL-converter chip that came packaged with, but separate from, the camera board.

Okay ^_^ that could have prevented a lot of confusion before I fixed it... I had thought the serial mentioned in the code refered to the serial cable port on the camera, so I left it plugged in... until I re-read the FAQ on Kevin's website and took it off...

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Did you look at the T-packet description?
http://kevin.org/frc/CMUcam2_data_packets.pdf

I'll get right on that now that the camera works I've got time...

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Yea, CMUCam issues should be posted in the CMUCam sub-forum, but we'll forgive you.

Yeah, my first post on this forum...

Anyways, my primary problem, aside from leaving the serial cable plugged in was that I never included terminal.c and terminal.h. I re-read the insrtuctions and found no reference to either.

Thanks for your help everyone. ^_^