Grrrr! Dillo, how'd you get the XV-11 node built in Groovy?

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anfed...@comcast.net

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Jun 15, 2013, 9:21:14 PM6/15/13
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I keep getting build errors when I try to 'rosmake.'    I am trying to build it a ros_workspace.  I tried building the entire cwru_semi_stable and the xv_11_laser  by itself but it fails to build with a permission error.

Steve " 'dillo" Okay (Roadknight Mobility Labs)

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Jun 16, 2013, 3:21:50 PM6/16/13
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On Jun 16, 2013, at 06:56 , hbrob...@googlegroups.com wrote:

> Grrrr! Dillo, how'd you get the XV-11 node built in Groovy?
> anfed...@comcast.net Jun 16 01:21AM
>
> I keep getting build errors when I try to 'rosmake.' I am trying to build it a ros_workspace. I tried building the entire cwru_semi_stable and the xv_11_laser by itself but it fails to build with a permission error.

Permissions error ? That seems odd.
Where are you trying to build it ?
I did my build in the home directory of my BeagleBone as a regular user and it worked.
Are you trying to build it somewhere under /opt/ros/groovy or something ?
Can you cut and paste your output into mail here and let us have a look at what errors you're seeing ?
Thanks,

----Steve " 'dillo" Okay

anfederman@comcast

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Jun 17, 2013, 10:43:28 PM6/17/13
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The Case Western Reserve package that has the XV-11 node was written for an
old version of ROS, cturtle.

In Groovy there are two choices for third party building software: Catkin
and rosbuild. It sounds like you did something else, but I don't get how
you resolved the dependencies. Did you just do a 'make' and 'make
install?'

I don't see how that would possibly work in Groovy.

If you could send me your history, maybe I'll get it.



--------------------------------------------------
From: "Steve " 'dillo" Okay (Roadknight Mobility Labs)"
<arma...@gothpunk.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2013 12:21 PM
To: <hbrob...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [HBRobotics] Re:Grrrr! Dillo, how'd you get the XV-11 node built in
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anfederman@comcast

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Jun 18, 2013, 12:28:22 AM6/18/13
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OK never mind, I got it working (sort of). For rviz the fixed frame is
'neato_laser' and the topic is 'scan.' I am getting good data about a 1/3
of the time and the rest of the time I get random confetti. Not sure if
this is a speed, interface or screwy LDS. We can look at it during the
SIG Wednesday. I am controlling the speed with an adjustable voltage
regulator.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "anfederman@comcast" <anfed...@comcast.net>
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 7:43 PM
To: <hbrob...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [HBRobotics] Re:Grrrr! Dillo, how'd you get the XV-11 node

Steve " 'dillo" Okay (Roadknight Mobility Labs)

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Jun 18, 2013, 1:33:25 PM6/18/13
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>
> "anfederman@comcast" <anfed...@comcast.net> Jun 17 09:28PM -0700
>
> OK never mind, I got it working (sort of). For rviz the fixed frame is
> 'neato_laser' and the topic is 'scan.' I am getting good data about a 1/3
> of the time and the rest of the time I get random confetti. Not sure if
> this is a speed, interface or screwy LDS. We can look at it during the
> SIG Wednesday. I am controlling the speed with an adjustable voltage
> regulator.

If the "confetti" is rings of points around the robot and then POIs that appear and disappear, your laser
might have version 2 firmware and the driver is trying to decode the data as version 1 packets.

The current version of the CWRU package has code to accept a "--firmware=" option on the command-line, but seemed to be hardcoded to version 1 firmware
regardless of the actual arguments you launch it with. I fixed my install to force it to use version 2 firmware and suddenly it all worked.

As for speed control, you can run "rostopic hz /scan" to see the frequency of the laser scans.
It should be around 5Hz. On a scale of 0-1024, I've found a PWM value of 850 gets me closest to that.

Right now I'm just doing an open loop approach where I have a Python script that gooses the motor via OSC PWM commands,
although I've looked at hacking into the xv11_laser publisher code and tapping into that to get frequency data and controlling the PWM that way.
I would need to dust off my C++ skills a bit, but otherwise it doesn't look too hard.

Ideally this should all be cleaned up and pushed up to the ROS gang because there seems to be a growing number of users that are using bare Neato lasers.

Let's talk more about this tomorrow night at the Builder's SIG meeting.

-----Steve " 'dillo" Okay

anfederman@comcast

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Jun 18, 2013, 9:45:11 PM6/18/13
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Thanks Dillo,

    That was it.  Adding  _firmware_version:=2 to the parameters fixed it.  I found at 3 volts the rate was about 3.6,  at 3.67 volts I was right at 5.0 hz. I was getting maximum ranges of just under 5 meters.

Tweak the volts, the hz is low,
You gotta make the data flow,
Just listening in to the /scan topic,
Read the docs and ROS is groovy.

                      Apologies to Paul Simon.


--------------------------------------------------
From: "Steve " 'dillo" Okay (Roadknight Mobility Labs)" <arma...@gothpunk.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 10:33 AM

To: <hbrob...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [HBRobotics] Re:Grrrr! Dillo, how'd you get the XV-11 node  built in Groovy?

>>

Steve " 'dillo" Okay (Roadknight Mobility Labs)

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Jun 19, 2013, 11:14:33 AM6/19/13
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On Jun 19, 2013, at 07:07 , hbrob...@googlegroups.com wrote:

>
> Thanks Dillo,
>
> That was it. Adding _firmware_version:=2 to the parameters fixed it. I found at 3 volts the rate was about 3.6, at 3.67 volts I was right at 5.0 hz. I was getting maximum ranges of just under 5 meters.

Is that the syntax for that ?---I thought I'd tried it, didn't seem to work and so I went in and "fixed" the code to force it to use version 2.
I'd also like to note that this all happened at 02:30 in the morning the day(night?) of MakerFaire, so it's possible I typo'ed things more than once :)

See you tonight!

-----Steve " 'dillo" Okay

anfederman@comcast

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Jun 19, 2013, 1:15:39 PM6/19/13
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Yup. Not clear from the documentation (No wait -- how foolish of me - the
source code is the documentation!). I looked at the source and in the .h
file were the parameter names. Since 'port' mapped to "_port:=", I
guessed that was the syntax.

One of my favorite oxymorons: "open_source documentation."

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Steve " 'dillo" Okay (Roadknight Mobility Labs)"
<arma...@gothpunk.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 8:14 AM
To: <hbrob...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [HBRobotics] Re: Grrrr! Dillo, how'd you get the XV-11 node built
in Groovy?

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