Re: [Playerstage-developers] Player/Stage and the PTZ camera for the Pioneer 2

[Cameron Stone <camerons@cs...>]

On Sun, 2004-03-07 at 08:51, sage * wrote:

> Unfortunately, when I took the Pioneer apart to switch the camera's serial 
> cable I did not find a suitable port for it to be connected too on the on 
> board computer's motherboard.  So now I assume I either need an adapter or I 
> need to do a little engineering to make the serial cable for the camera fit 
> into a port on the motherboard.

Yeah, the serial port plug on the motherboard is IDC, I believe (similar
to the IDE plug on your hard drive). On our machine, activmedia have
connected one of the serial ports to a D9 socket on the outside of the
machine (along with other sockets for keyboard, screen, network etc). I
believe it was accessible on /dev/ttyS1. We made up a VISCA-D9 cable for
the connection from this port to the camera, and everything then worked
fine.

Hope this helps,

	Cameron. (University of NSW, Australia)

[Playerstage-developers] Player/Stage and the PTZ camera for the Pioneer 2

[sage * <bluemimic@ho...>]

Hey guys I am new to the list.  I am a research student for Sheila Tejada at 
the University of New Orleans, and I am working with the Pioneer 2.  I found 
Player/Stage a while ago and used it very little, but now wish to go more in 
dept with it.  However I can't seem to get the PTZ camera that came with the 
Pioneer 2 to pan, tilt, or zoom.   After reading some documentation from 
ActivMedia and on the Player/Stage website I realize that Player/Stage needs 
the PTZ camera to be connected to the motherboard of the on board computer 
of the Pioneer 2, whereas when ActivMedia assembled it they connected the 
camera to the serial port on the robots circuit board.

Unfortunately, when I took the Pioneer apart to switch the camera's serial 
cable I did not find a suitable port for it to be connected too on the on 
board computer's motherboard.  So now I assume I either need an adapter or I 
need to do a little engineering to make the serial cable for the camera fit 
into a port on the motherboard.

I am email this list because I need help figuring out which port on the 
motherboard is to be used for the camera.  Any information any of you can 
provide would be great.  Thank you very much.

--Shahrukh Tarapore
  UNO Robotics Team

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Re: [Playerstage-developers] Player/Stage and the PTZ camera for the Pioneer 2

[Cameron Stone <camerons@cs...>]

On Sun, 2004-03-07 at 08:51, sage * wrote:

> Unfortunately, when I took the Pioneer apart to switch the camera's serial 
> cable I did not find a suitable port for it to be connected too on the on 
> board computer's motherboard.  So now I assume I either need an adapter or I 
> need to do a little engineering to make the serial cable for the camera fit 
> into a port on the motherboard.

Yeah, the serial port plug on the motherboard is IDC, I believe (similar
to the IDE plug on your hard drive). On our machine, activmedia have
connected one of the serial ports to a D9 socket on the outside of the
machine (along with other sockets for keyboard, screen, network etc). I
believe it was accessible on /dev/ttyS1. We made up a VISCA-D9 cable for
the connection from this port to the camera, and everything then worked
fine.

Hope this helps,

	Cameron. (University of NSW, Australia)

Re: [Playerstage-developers] Player/Stage and the PTZ camera for the Pioneer 2

[Brian Gerkey <gerkey@ro...>]

On Sun, 7 Mar 2004, Cameron Stone wrote:

> On Sun, 2004-03-07 at 08:51, sage * wrote:
> 
> > Unfortunately, when I took the Pioneer apart to switch the camera's serial 
> > cable I did not find a suitable port for it to be connected too on the on 
> > board computer's motherboard.  So now I assume I either need an adapter or I 
> > need to do a little engineering to make the serial cable for the camera fit 
> > into a port on the motherboard.
> 
> Yeah, the serial port plug on the motherboard is IDC, I believe (similar
> to the IDE plug on your hard drive). On our machine, activmedia have
> connected one of the serial ports to a D9 socket on the outside of the
> machine (along with other sockets for keyboard, screen, network etc). I
> believe it was accessible on /dev/ttyS1. We made up a VISCA-D9 cable for
> the connection from this port to the camera, and everything then worked
> fine.

Cameron's got it right.  The onboard computer in the robot has 4 serial
ports, but ActivMedia wires up just the first 2: 1 (/dev/ttyS0) goes
straight to the P2OS microcontroller board and 1 (/dev/ttyS1) is connected
to a DB9 port on the side panel of the robot.  

What I usually do is wire up the other two ports (/dev/ttyS2 and
/dev/ttyS3) to inline DB9 connectors and leave them protruding from the
top of the robot.  Then you've got 3 free serial ports, to which you
can connect a variety of devices (such as a SICK laser or Sony camera).

Now you just need a VISCA->DB9 cable that allows you to connect the
Sony unit to any standard serial port (including those on the robot).
I would recommend buying such a cable if you can.  Soldering wires onto
the VISCA end can be really tedious.

        brian.

-- 
Brian P. Gerkey                       gerkey@...
Stanford Robotics Lab                 http://robotics.stanford.edu/~gerkey