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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : It's too quiet here ...

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CaptainBoing

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Joined: 07/09/2016
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2075
Posted: 07:23pm 12 May 2024
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  phil99 said  
  Quote  What is SIN?
Just a guess, but looking at the trace he seems to be including the SINE function in the PID loop to counteract oscillations caused by thermal lag.


exactly so.  

SIN() also provides a gentle approach to the target by reducing the power more and more as you approach.

There is a "nudge" value based on the demanded and ambient temperatures so that you don't get caught in a never-ending insufficient-power-input-to-achieve-demand position (it isn't linear). There is a bit of that visible in the plot as it stabilzes around 60W, but as it is <2% from the target °C and on the cool side, I can live with it. If it ever gets to the point that I can't then I can tweak the nudge just to provide a bit more, but risk over-shooting because now you can't back the power off enough before you get to the target. I really don't like that and the little bit you see in the plot where you approach the demand (100°C) early on at full power then back off irks me, although that is because I don't start PIDing early enough. This is all tied up in some horible complex ambient Vs demand Vs power algoritm, which to be honest is already to complex for what it's doing.

Part of getting this right, is knowing when it is "right enough" and then leaving it alone before what is left of my hair bails too.   This is backed up by local hot-spots as well. no point fighting over this when the temperature varies by about 6° or more depending where you measure, e.g. right over the heaters or at the corners of the plate.
 
PeterB
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Joined: 05/02/2015
Location: Australia
Posts: 651
Posted: 12:36am 13 May 2024
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G'Day Capt & Phil

I never did understand control systems. I managed to avoid them until late in my career and then I was saved by a tutorial from Inland Torque Motors.
However, I would have thought that there was enough in PID to do all that but as I said, I never did understand the things.

Peter
 
CaptainBoing

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Posted: 07:48am 13 May 2024
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G'Day Peter.

Yeah I am still pottering about, Thanks

for me, process & control is a love/hate relationship

It can be really infuriating but when it works it's a real buzz.

Even simple requirements tend to become quite complex once you start breaking it into steps. I am minded of Mahler's response to the question in Max Headroom "how does it work?" to which he replied "You just turn it on and key things in" - if only it were that simple.  

A few yers ago I built a garage controller, inside & outside lights, door automation, pipe heater for the winter etc. all controllable via Bluetooth and an app I did using the MIT app builder for Android. works nicely... but even just opening the door mushrooms into a number of steps and a ton of flags and timers so I know the state of the whole system at any one point.

I did a sneaky thing with that too... the outside light is a mains strip of LEDs over the curtain - very bright, but I only want it on when it's dark and the door is open/ing/closing. So now time becomes a factor, and so does time of year as the daylight moves about... so now I need a clock in a system that doesn't have an RTC. What I ended up doing was in the Android app, every command is preceeded by the epochtime (unixtime) from the phone and the controller sets its date/time from that each time it gets a command and before it interprets that command - so called "Just In Time". So now when a door movement is demanded, I can tell whether the light is to be used too. I love control systems
Edited 2024-05-13 18:07 by CaptainBoing
 
thwill

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Joined: 16/09/2019
Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: 10:59am 13 May 2024
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  darthvader said  @Martin ,

II have made a boulder dash clone in TI83 calculator long ago , if it can help i attach the c source code  

...

The GIF/PNG are animated , i hope the forum can show it.


Unfortunately not, though I have archived your links for future reference (thanks).

I've talked about wanting an MMBasic Lode Runner clone in the past and I think @vegipete may even have posted a screen or two, but I haven't seen anything more.

Best wishes,

Tom
Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures
 
Justplayin

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Joined: 31/01/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 326
Posted: 07:23pm 13 May 2024
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  thwill said  
I've talked about wanting an MMBasic Lode Runner clone in the past and I think @vegipete may even have posted a screen or two, but I haven't seen anything more.


Would love to see a good version of Lode Runner. It and it's sequel Mad Monks Revenge are among the few games I've played from beginning to end. I've placed it on my programming projects wish list. Unfortunately it is near the bottom of the list since I have none of the skills required to write the game.😞

--Curtis
Edited 2024-05-14 05:24 by Justplayin
I am not a Mad Scientist...  It makes me happy inventing new ways to take over the world!!
 
Volhout
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Joined: 05/03/2018
Location: Netherlands
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Posted: 08:02pm 13 May 2024
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Hi Curtis and others,

I have never played Loderunner, but many seem to have good memories of this game.
Which makes it a very unrewarding project to do.
It is hard -maybe impossible- to satisfy these nostalgic memories from so many people, and each one has it's own memories of the game.

Graphically the game is simple, so the fond memories must come from game play, complexity, puzzles, speed, levels. And it will be hard to make that satisfy for everyone.

Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
Justplayin

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Joined: 31/01/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 326
Posted: 03:38am 14 May 2024
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I have written a couple of games in the past and do know you need to have a real passion for games you write. My Pyramid Solitaire game took me a couple of years to find a bug which crashed the game if all the cards were cleared on the first pass through the deck. I'm still not 100% sure it's fixed since a perfect game is so rare.

Anyway, a couple of months ago, I did download a bunch of different versions of Lode Runner. Since I'm not artistic, my hope was/is to be able to "borrow" some graphics if/when I decide to attempt my own version. I would worry about creating my own graphics once I got the core game working.  

--Curtis
I am not a Mad Scientist...  It makes me happy inventing new ways to take over the world!!
 
PhenixRising
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Joined: 07/11/2023
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 857
Posted: 07:30am 14 May 2024
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  thwill said  ... and the risk is that the quieter it is, the quieter it will get.

Normally Peter's updates sustain a regular heartbeat on the forum, but he's quiet at the moment. Assuming he isn't having a well deserved rest then he has dropped enough clues that I have a suspicion what he is working on ... we will find out whether I am right .



Can't say I've sensed any clues but I do feel it's the calm before a matherp storm  

Personally, I couldn't be happier....Recent developments (thanks again, Harm) have opened-up all kinds of possibilities. Just need to clone myself.    
 
Volhout
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Posts: 4223
Posted: 12:25pm 14 May 2024
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@Curtis,

This is by no means complete, but see this tread.
The basis is there...
Just need to finalize it...

LodeRunner

Regards,

Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
vegipete

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Joined: 29/01/2013
Location: Canada
Posts: 1109
Posted: 04:07pm 14 May 2024
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I've done a lot more work on LodeRunner since then. Don't put effort into that demo. I'll post an update if desired.
Visit Vegipete's *Mite Library for cool programs.
 
Justplayin

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Joined: 31/01/2014
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Posts: 326
Posted: 06:13pm 14 May 2024
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  vegipete said  I've done a lot more work on LodeRunner since then. Don't put effort into that demo. I'll post an update if desired.


Even though Lode Runner is a low priority for me right now, I would love to see your current update. My current high priority projects are my garage door monitor and my new MAX7219 matrix LED modules.

Effectively I'm retired now and it still seems there is never enough time for all the things I want to do.🤔

--Curtis
I am not a Mad Scientist...  It makes me happy inventing new ways to take over the world!!
 
paceman
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Joined: 07/10/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1329
Posted: 04:58am 15 May 2024
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  TassyJim said  
  Quote  
I used to climb around EHV switchyards for a living. 220kV is interesting. Instead of insulated gloves like we used for live switchboard work, we had conductive sole boots to make sure you were earthed. That stopped your spanner drawing an arc as you approached the bolt, but it didn't stop your hair standing on end. Don't have the hair problem any longer.

Jim

I worked in aluminium smelters most of my working life. At one stage (for a couple of years) I can remember the switch yard personnel washing off the salt and dust on the big insulaters with a water hose. Never did understand why they weren't immediately vapourised; the water volume was way too much to have been de-ionised. There was both high voltage AC and DC in there. One thing that was totally taboo was taking aluminium or wire striped ladders into the smelter at all and the security people made sure a contractor didn't bring one in without realising the danger.

Interesting about the boots Jim.
Not sure if he was wearing them but it wouldn't have helped a young electrician being badly burnt (in hospital three weeks) by molten copper that spat out at him while working live on our lab switchboard. He was jabbing at the insulating plastic on the live busbar of the board and went through it straight to the earthing bar behind it. It seems the end of his screwdriver had it's insulation stripped too far back from the tip allowing the short between the live and earth busbars. I believe that same switchboard with the end of the screwdriver still fused to the board is still used as a training tool by the apprentice school.
 
Volhout
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Location: Netherlands
Posts: 4223
Posted: 11:36am 15 May 2024
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Hi Pete,

We are interested in the LodeRunner progress...
If you feel you are at a level where you can share it with us, I will definitely look at it.

Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
PeteCotton

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Joined: 13/08/2020
Location: Canada
Posts: 368
Posted: 07:31pm 21 May 2024
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  thwill said  In the absence of Peter's posts I was wondering whether those of us not working on "secret" projects might like to share ?


I have a few projects on the go (doing a round robin between them).

Project #1. Recently I've come to think that part of the fun with retro stuff is being able to handle and touch things rather than just scrolling through menu's of stuff (music/games etc.). To this end I've built a little RFID reader hooked up to an ESP-32 - which in turn pretends to be a USB keyboard. I've hooked this up to my arcade machine and made a bunch of little plastic tags (one for each game). And now when you want to play a game, you have to dig out the tag and insert it into the arcade machine - like a disk or ROM from the old days.



I'm really happy how this has turned out. It really does give a new feel to playing the arcade.

Oh - yeah - I also had to write a custom front end for MAME to interface with the new reader. The only thing left is to 3-D print a case for the reader.

Project #2. Every year we have a pub crawl on our street where we change our garages into themed pubs. Last year my kids and I did "Barbie" and one of the neighbours very kindly made me a huge Barbie photo booth. This year, he's doing a Star Wars themed pub, so I thought I'd return the favour by building him a sit in Star Wars arcade cabinet (out of wood and cardboard). But for the internals, I'm using an old Nintendo Wii (one of the early ones that could read Gamecube disks) and a copy of Star Wars Rouge Leader that I got off E-Bay. The Gamecube controller is a bit small and fiddly to use in the arcade, so I found an old PC joystick (with the 15-pin D connector) in a thrift store. The problem here is that the X-Y pots on the PC joystick are 100KΩ, but the Gamecube controller pots are 30KΩ. So I'm building a little adapter board using an ESP32 that reads the 100KΩ Joystick pots and then outputs (via a programmable variable resistor chip) 0-30KΩ directly into the Gamecube controller. Now, the PC joystick should look like a Gamecube controller to the Wii. There's probably an easier way of doing this, but I'm having fun mucking around.

Project #3. With the CMM2 I am working on a new game. I'm quite excited about it - but it's a long way from completion.
 
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