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Asked — Edited

Ez-B V4 Product Accessories For Use With Raspberry Pi 3/4 Or Arduino

Will ez robot accessories that connect to the ezb-v4 work on the i/o and other pins of the rasp pi 3/4 and arduino's like other manufacturers accessory kits do or am I wasting my time? I want to know becuase i don't plan on using ezbuilder or ezb-v4. The ez robot accessories are better quality built and give faster explanation of their useability than other accessory kits do and its just faster to buy thought ez robot then any other manufacturers. Plus python is a faster way to program on pi than to run through ezbuilder and ezb, at least how i run through things, instead of using c# like a old pc from the old days. Love ez-robot but just need a faster easier approach to start with.

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Synthiam
#1   — Edited
While I can't answer support questions for ezrobot products, because this is synthiam.com not ez-robot.com - what ezrobot products are you wanting to connect to an arduino or raspberry pi? Specifically, what do you mean by "raspberry pi or arduino". Because those are different. The EZ-Robot EZ-B v4, Raspberry Pi and Arduino are all entirely different things.
#2  
I know the arduino/pi/ezb are different, but what im I'm wanting to know is all the accessories, like sensors, servos, camera's that ez-robot sell for the ezbv4, will they connect and work the same as the accessories kits that work on arduino and raspberry pi. I am wanting to use the rasp pi 3/4 for form factor, computational ability, and accessory functionality controls all in one in a powerful 16 node super computer cluster, mostly for use with Linux and python coding ability for faster easier coding functional and speed. And its much easier to understand what each accessory is used for through ez robot webpage for and ez robot's accessories are much better in quality than other manufactures accessory kits.
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Synthiam
#3   — Edited
1) EZ-Robot Camera is not compatible with arduino. Arduino and audio or video isn't really a thing. Although there is an arduino cam and some others, but they're 1 or 2 frames per second and can't process video tracking or anything. So no, arduino can't support cameras. Raspberry pi has it's own camera called the Pi Cam. 

2) Servos from ezrobot can work on arduino, natively. Although, arduino doesn't have very high resolution for servo positions. And arduino has issues moving more than a few servos at the same time. Raspberry pi can't move servos at all because they don't have PWM. There is a "hat" for a raspbery pi for servos. Have to remember that all pwm servos, whether ezrobot or not, use the same signal for moving. EZRobot servos' are merely stronger and better than all pwm servos. This is because they have over current, stall and heat protection. Also they're super quiet and smooth because the motor oscillation is outside of the human hearing range. Dogs may not like it though:D

While i don't mind the raspberry pi, i'm not its biggest fan. It is about the same speed as an x86 based computer from 1998. That's about 22 years ago, so i'd rather spend the extra few dollars and use a more capable real computer with x86 enhanced cpu support. The computer i use, that's the same size as the raspberry pi, and runs full windows 10 is the latte panda. The latta panda even has an onboard soundcard, hdmi, and built-in arduino. So it can run ARC without troubles. I have a video review i did on the latte panda which i'll paste below...

See the full tutorial video series I did on the latte panda here: https://synthiam.com/Community/Tutorials/LattePanda-Beginners-Guide-18552/1

#4  
Wow i didnt realize how powerful latte panda's were, so last thing. You said in one of the videos it can be like an ezb without any thing else so can it be used like multi ezb's running in a servor cluster panda set up? Or should i just connect other ezb's to the latte panda instead? And plus is there a linux equivalent of the latte-panda that will work just as good as the window's latte panda, been havin lots of issues with windows and Linux just seems to be better alternative, but if there isnt one, i can always try again with lattepanda and its windows 10 os, ive used windows form dos/3.1/95/98/xp/Vista/7/8/8.1 and now 10 so ive used windows for a while but windows quality over the years just isnt the same any more.
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Synthiam
#5  
Haha i hear you on the windows gripes! Seems like i'm installing windows from scratch every few months on my embedded solutions.

The thing about windows is... it gets clogged with programs quite easily. Mostly because they all seem to want to load when windows starts. The thing about linux is, there's not a lot it can do without a lot of custom work. For example, even having our software support linux is a pain in the butt. This is because there's no standard apis for things like speech or audio or webcams, etc.. Everyone implements their own interface to everything, and if they do decide to use an api, it's a different api or different version each time. 

Linux may be "free" but supporting it an OS is the most costly venture i've ever embarked on... lessons learned!

Windows provides applications with standard interfaces for speech and audio and webcams, etc... At a small cost to performance (in some cases).

The solution I go with is Windows because it just works. I download windows installer to a USB key for free. I don't even bother paying for windows anymore because all you lose out on is changing the background. A unregistered copy of windows only prevents you from changing the background haha

So download windows, throw it on a usb key. Install it on the latte panda and put ARC on. Off to the races you go...

Great thing is if the computer ever starts acting funny, simply reinstall windows.

I don't install anything other than ARC these days though. I don't even use web browsers on my embedded computer. And if i do, i use the new EDGE because it's actually based on Chrome these days. And it installs much lighter than Chrome. I uninstalled chrome from all my computers and only use Edge. Never thought i'd be saying that but it's the truth:P
#6   — Edited
Thanks dj, i guess i just need to give windows another shot, plus installing api's which not sure what that is lmfao, but all the rest is to much of a headache, i guess i will role with the latta panda then and just come to the forums if any thing is being a pain with it, and see if the community has any imput that can help lol. Thanks for all your help dj, your a life saver.
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Synthiam
#7  
Anytime! I'm going to plan a robot build with a latte panda soon - so we can share notes
#8  
Sweet and i forgot to ask but is the latta panda your using in the video tutorials the same as the latta panda alpha and delta or different? And if different will the alpha and delta models work the same?
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Synthiam
#9  
Oh - i don't actually know the answer to that. I'm guessing they work the same? Did you find a page that shows the differences?
#10  
Im guess they work the same the alpha is the enhanced panda and the delta is the standard, which is the one your using i think, it said its has a built in arduino like your but didnt say ill have to look farther into it i guess
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USA
#12  
if you need a recommendation for an image tool to help rotate the profile picture: 
https://www.getpaint.net/

ARC is not fully supported on Linux, so maybe you should change your profile name to  "Windows Robot 92":)

just kidding:)
#13  
Thanks ptp and i had no idea of a 8gb latte panda was out and they use the same arduino onboard chips so works for me, i guess ill stick with windows a little longer just intil synthiam releases a version of ARC and tutorials to set up on linux with all the functionalities and controls of windows ARC lol.
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Synthiam
#14   — Edited
We’re having a hard time deciding if raspberry pi is worth continuing to support. We understand there’s a lot of pi’s out there,  but the reason not many are using them with ARC is due to the low processing capabilities and difficult OS maintenance responsibilities.

We see very very very few installations of ARC on the pi compared to windows. With low cost systems like the latte panda, and what you get compared to the pi, it’s no wonder people don’t use the pi much. ARC for Windows was downloaded 100,000 times in the last year and only a few hundred of those are for raspberry pi. 

now I will say there’s a lot of hobbyists and tinkerererers playing with the pi. And they’re happy doing very light weight things with it. So I’m by no means dismissing their time dabbling with the pi. 

the reality of the pi specifications speak for themselves... it’s not a computer for serious work and wasnt designed to be. Our goal of ARC is to provide you access to the latest technologies without sacrificing hardware performance limitations. Meaning, I won’t hold back feature development of the ARC software to accommodate slow computers. 

also, supporting the pi still means tons of hardware compatibility limitations. Like being able to simply connect a usb device and use it. There’s just no standard framework because no one actually owns any decisions that go into operating system development. And when a group of people finally decide on a way to do it, they change it a month later with a new source branch and call it a new name. 

the open source philosophy surrounding the pi has become a playground for programmers to experiment and demonstrate their abilities, rather than develop a stable/standardized product that applications for businesses and consumers can rely on - at least without significant ongoing maintenance efforts. albeit, the work gone into that open source world is remarkable and definitely paves the way to influence stable commercial software on windows. So it really has its place. 

It just isn’t a great platform to host commercial applications. But, their community accepts that because it’s the nature of open source. Push push push push changes with new features and let users test. It’s not about the product for them. It’s about the technology. I respect it. But as a business, I don’t know if we can support the lack of standardization.
PRO
USA
#15  
My first robot for YouTube has a built in Latte Panda and a 10 inch touch screen. I have 18 axis of motion. It’s not all together yet to test all them working at the same time so not sure it the original panda will have enough power. If not I’ll swap it out with the alpha. It’s not slow but not fast once you have it up and booting. But prolly way better than a pi.

i look forward to any hack nights with the panda.
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Synthiam
#16  
Will, the ui during development is gonna be slow no matter what you do on a light weight computer. Whether it’s compiling a custom program in gcc. However, once the program is up and running - it’ll fly. 

the UI is most expensive for computing. It’s very taxing to provide all those gradients and shaders and anti aliasing and transparencies and widget rendering. But once you stop clicking on stuff and let the program run, it’ll rock. 

turning off UI enhancements on the latte panda will speed the ui up a lot. Like disabling transparency and such. Also removing all the unneeded programs. A big performance improvement is disabling the virus scanner. 

I believe I covered those performance steps in my latte panda tutorial.
PRO
USA
#17  
Cool. I will definitely do all those things to get it running a bit faster. The interface is really just going to provide one function of altering three choices. After that it won’t be doing anything but rocking ARC!
PRO
Synthiam
#18  
Right on 

To clarify - i don't mean the user interface for the user. I mean the interface of the operating system that you're using when programming. When you program and use the software, you're using a ton of cpu to interact with stuff. Simply having a user interface in ARC for users doesn't use much processor.
PRO
USA
#19   — Edited
Got it. I'm testing and building out ARC on a laptop then when finished I will port the saved project over to the Latte Panda. And also to be clear it wasn't ARC that was slow, it was the Panda its self on booting opening programs etc. Its amazing how used to speedy computers and tablets we've become!

That leads me to a question. Is it possible in ARC to create a UI similar to the  mobile interface ( like buttons, sliders etc), so a user would not see the ARC windows but rather components like virtual buttons etc?
#20  
Thanks dj, and i see your point on the pi, ive done alot of research the past several days in to pi, odroid, asus tkinker board, latte panda and nvidia jetson products and honestly, the latte panda and nvidia jetson xavier and even odroid are just better than a pi, of courses budget wise the panda alpha is the best pic, followed buy the odroid middle priced and the top of the line nvidia Xavier which is extremely powereful and would be amazing to use with either its own onboard microcontroller with their  robotics software for use with its supported hardware or even with ARC and ezb-v4 controller instead of its onboard controller or just ARC and the onboard controller as well like the latta panda. Honestly i feel like a fool for doubting ARC or ezbv4 at all, i mean i jump on the bandwagon as soon as i discovered ezrobot in '13/15 when i was almost completing my first bot, which rest robo soul never got completed, omega project never seen the light of day. But the reason i joined ezrobot revolution and the synthiam software is becuase of its simplicity and superiority in its approach to robotics and its powerful Flexibility in aplications. I to this day will never dought the ez- robot evolution again, because there just isnt any other substitute for it, just 3 sbc that can use the software and no other micro controller on the market can compete hands down.
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