Tinker Niche

  HOWTO make the OTTO STARTER BOT using components bought off the Internet. As there is an avid interest in building toys, opensource bots come in very handy. One such opensource bot is the Otto Bot. They have designed multiple versions of bots that can be integrated by kids and provided detailed information on their website  Otto Bot Website Designed by a toy maker basically uses off the shelf hobbyist components to build and program bots. One can learn to assemble the hardware, write code using a GUI like scratch or even use the Arduino IDE and also is extensible. The plastics are also open sourced and one can download and print them if there is a 3D printer available. There is availability of online 3d printed parts. After assembling the first Otto, a couple of other Otto kits were also integrated by interested parties (kids/adults) The default software collection comes with a Scratch frontend called Blockly. One can download it and examples for various hardware and emotion...

     As of December 2022 Semiconductor shortage has led to various companies searching for alternate options that are in stock or have longer term availability. One such example is the availability of Raspberry Pi, Toradex older versions, etc. MyIrtech has an extensive portfolio of such equivalents.  https://www.myirtech.com/ There was a need to support a client who needed a browser preferably chrome and apache and php. One requirement was to support serial port via PHP modules, needing the not actively maintained DIO module Why anybody would use serial port via apache definitely weird, but maybe the customer only had that as the default skill An NXP imx8 SBC MYS-8MMX was found to be suitable wrt the application needs.  Its an imx8 quad 1.8G cores and also a single 400 MHz microcontroller. 2GB DDR4 and 8GB emmc, with USB Host, NVME, gig E, WIFI/BT, MIPI CSI, LVDS/HDMI output, etc All for a cost of 100 USD. And with a 7 inch display would work out to say 20k INR ...

  The ESP32CAM is a super cheap IP streamable camera running off an ESP32 and an omnivision sensor like the OV2640. It is around 600 INR (2022). It would be cool indeed if it could do night vision too. A long time ago another webcam had been hacked to provide night vision capabilites. So there was a need to check if the ESP32CAM could also be similar converted to an IR camera. The advantage this would provide would be to have night vision with an IR light as is common in security cameras.  So the uses are many: security camera, trail camera and more importantly a camera with source available to change it to do anything. With help from the right contacts, the lens assembly was opened up and the relevant filters were removed. There was a problem in re-assembly as a small lens would keep falling off and would interfere with the image. It was solved by gluing the lens assembly. Below is a video showing the results of the enabling of night vision on ESP32Cam.  One can see that...

 8x8 RGB DOT MATRIX DISPLAY as CLOCK, EMOTICON DISPLAY, NEWS FEED DEVICE Would be interesting to build a multi-function RGB color display device.  Good to have  display of time, images and any other chamak (custom messages, RSS Feeds,etc) ESP has good support for RGB Led via the Fastled library.  Bought and interfaced an 8x8 RGB from an online store with an esp8266 Fabricated a casing with the face and the box from a local vendor The FASTLED  capabilites/effects are as below. FASTLED is available here 

  Raspivid Custom Annotations Raspberry Pi distribution is equipped with an executable called raspivid/raspistill which is used to capture and view video/still images from the RPI's CSI camera. The source code for this is available on the internet. It has various options like displaying video on HDMI, running TCP/UDP stream server, capability of reading encoded MP4 streams from the encoder, annotating the transmitted stream, automated still captures, effects, etc. Annotations like an OSD label can be provided on the stream being transmitted. Time annotations, etc can be enabled on the stream/video feed.  The only drawback is that annotations are updated every second on the feed. As there was a need to view various sensor information embedded in the video from a remotely operated vehicle, it would indeed be advantageous to extend raspivid capabilites. As a quick modification was intended, the relevant files were changed to use an IPC (InterProcess Communication) mechanism and a...

  Running GUI on sample hardware Sample GUI showing DDU interface for WAP Series Locomotive Driver Display Units are used in Locomotives to provide HMI for operating the locomotives. Various realtime sensor information of the locomotive/train are presented in user friendly interface on an LCD screen on an SBC.  The WAP Series locomotives use a variant of the MultiFunction Vehicular Bus (MVB) called MICAS. It is a master/slave realtime bus operating in the locomotive and beyond and can work over long distances (~4kms). Information is exchanged over the bus in the form of process data and messages. It supports connection via wire or fiber. There was a need to implement a Driver Interface while being interfaced to the MVB/MICAS. The design also had to be kept similar to existing products so as to retain locopilot familiarity and also provide similar features. Just as a fun exercise, an oscilloscope was used to dump traffic on the MVB from an available setup and manually validated...

The WDP4/WDG4 locomotive is a diesel locomotive used actively by the Indian Railways. It is a locally built General Motors Electro-Motive Division's GT46MAC (freight) and GT46PAC (passanger) variant. More details can be found here  WDP4/WDG4 info on Wikipedia The various gauges on this locomotive are Analog and there was a need to digitize them and provide a single console like is common on many locomotive Driver Display Units.  A commonly available industrial x86 SBC which could run Linux and a GUI was chosen. It was interfaced at a location on the loco rack where digital signals were available. It could show a locopilot various readings on the console: Speed, Brake Pipe/Cylinder pressure, BE/TE, Notch position and also various fault conditions. This DDU was used in a few locos and has worked reliably. Below is a picture of a physical meter and how it looks on the implemented DDU. WDP4 Locomotive Original Wikimedia image here