Sign out

Onboard PC based Johnny 5

#21

I solved my robotics budget problems by incorporating my company (HUV), and doing some robotics consulting work on the side (5-10 hours per week). The money from that work finances a lot of robotics R&D, and the best part of it is I don’t have to pay taxes on it, since HUV is legitimately a robotics R&D company. HUV either pays for the parts as part of R&D, or it sponsors the costs of the parts for hobby-type robots (advertising).

The money is in a separate business account, so it never mixes with the household budget.

  • Jon
#22

Should have my Pico-ITX cpu/board here by the end of this week. UPS needs to move faster ;p

I’ll also try to get some video up on youtube of this sucker in action

Also:

I bribed Jim and Beth and got this project hosted on the Project section on the main page… however I added a short little tutorial on the R/C shock lower torso mod along with some links to what I used for parts to do it.

lynxmotion.com/images/html/proj096.htm

#23

Great job!

The shock mod still intrigues me to this day. It was a brilliant idea!

#24

Received the pico-itx cpu/board just now, I’ll try to get some pics of it up tonight.

#25

what are you planning to use for a disk storage? do you have a solid state disk module or :question:

#26

Either one of these: memory.com/item.asp?item=TS2GDOM44H

Or… I might go with an IDE to Compact Flash adapter and pop in a 4 gig CF card. Wouldnt be as fast as my 1st option, but I’d get double the size for about half the price.

#27

I have not had any success getting my mini-ITX board to boot XP from a CF card. If you know how to pull this off I am all ears. :smiley:

#28

What sort of interface are you using for the CF card?

I would be using one of these if I go that route: e-itx.com/bootable-ide-cf-re … ide-u.html

#29

Dunno if it helps, never tried it myself… but anyway, here’s a link which links to XPLite.

You’ve probably already seen this, but ah well :slight_smile:

#30

Hmm, I do not have the specific CF-to-IDE adapter that Ty linked but I have something similar. I am not sure of anything on the adapter that would affect boot though. I also already have XP Lite and a HDD image but do not have partition magic. I’ll grab a copy this weekend and give the process in your link a try ScuD. Thanks.

#31

My plan was to build a stripped down version of XP on a spare laptop harddrive, then resize the partition down to the size of my solid state device, then use Ghost to move it over. I’ve seen similar things done before, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

Eddie- is your problem that the CF device isnt being recognized as an IDE drive? Or once you have an OS on it its not being shown as a bootable disk?

#32

no it works as a disk just fine, but I can’t get the OS to actually use it as a boot device. I went so far as to do an install of XP onto the 4GB CF card (took like 5 hours) and it would not boot when it told me to re-start.

Maybe it’s particular to my CF card… it’s kingston technology though, not exactly an out of the back of a truck fresh from the docks card. :frowning:

#33

Eddie,

Have you tired using the ashes of a lamb spinkled over your yard, on a rainy day, with your underware over your head, running in figure eights, shouting “Boola Boola Boola!” ?

Prehaps this will cause the CF card to boot. :laughing: :stuck_out_tongue:

#34

two sixes from my perspective really… if I spent much more time fighting with getting it working as it was I would wind up in the same nut house the neighbors would have the cops send me after the little show you suggest.
let’s not thread hijack too badly here, eh?

#35

Tyberius - assuming you can get the CF card to boot, would you mind posting some details about how…? If it works well, I might just do that for my long-neglected SNESpc project. :smiley:

Or I might snag one of those IDE Flash modules from that other link you posted. :wink:

[size=75](Once I get back to working on it, anyway. Too busy right now to mess with it! D: )[/size]

#36

I love the shock mod too. So much we are getting these to sell on the website. They are made by Traxxas. I just got the samples yesterday. I assembled them last night and am very impressed. Thanks for the inspiration Tyberius. :smiley:

#37

Very nice Jim, I’m flattered.

Are you looking at putting together an upgrade kit? Or just selling the components? Id imagine you could find a better solution for mounting the rear shock then I did, I don’t have machining equipment at my disposal, so I’m sure you could replicate what I did with the Traxxis steering blocks quite easily.

Also: did you just assemble the shocks or have you mounted them on a Johnny 5 already? I’d love to see some pics of how you’re going about doing it.

#38

I didn’t have one of my Johnny 5’s at home when I built the shocks. I need to study it a bit before I make a final decision. I would like to create an option kit. Will see if I can pull it off. :wink:

#39

Sounds good, check your PMs :stuck_out_tongue:

#40

Thanks for the drawing! It’s pretty much what I was thinking. 8)