you have to play with the configuration of your head in ARC.. for example... sometimes you have to invert one of the servos... the horizontal servo or the vertical servo... maybe the two servos... for example if you have the red color... and you move it to the right and the head moves to the left... you have to invert the servo in ARC..

Good luck...

and sorry.... I am not good talking or writing english

edison2, you are doing fine. I understand you. I was just going to start with the same configuration that Gizmo was setup with since my head is identical to Gizmo's head.

@ Mel :

I presume that you liked Gizmos head so much you copied it for your bot. They say that imitation is the most subtle form of flattery. So, thanks. we both seem to be having the same camera problem. You ask for my pin out connections. The "PAN" servo is on D9, and the "TILT" servo is on pin D8. Is that what you meant? As far as the camera auto detect, look in the manual under Camera Device Tracking Modes, and you will see a command; "Camera Auto Tracking". I am going to be playing with camera tracking today so I will let you know if I have any sucess. My motor controls are still backwards, so I'm going to work on that also. It would be great if DJ could find some time to devote to answering our questions and help us resolve our problems. Do you recall a post about wiring the camera directly to the EZ-B? Do you know who posted it? I'm finding that the battery in the camera has a very short charge period. I hate to have to open the camera up and mess with it, but looks as if I'm going to have to. Keep me posted on your progress and I will do the same for you. It's incredability frustrating trying to solve these problems without DJ's help, isn't it?

Lloyd

Sadly, it takes a while to get an answer on some questions. I think the way they have to do it sometimes, is to hook everything up and try to emulate the problem on their equipment. Some problems take a long time. But, this board is better than any other I have found. He's a very busy man. But, he does care. Also, I have not used it. But, edison2 is standing by to chat with us and try to help us, I understand.

I wasn't asking for pin-outs. I was asking for settings. I figured if it worked for you, mine is identical, it would work for me.

AS far as Auto-tracking, I found it in the manual. But, in Reality it is not an option that you can select. The ONLY way I have found to get it was with the script below. I haven't tested it yet.

I finally got the color tracking working. It was a simple thing of not checking a certain item. Here are my settings:

EZB Connect COM5 Horizontal camera servo: D6, 5-90 Vertical Camera servo: D7, 5-62 Invert

Camera config: D6,5-90 Horizontal Invert D7. 5-62 Vertical, Invert motion 10,increments both 1 each. Movement and Camera Tracking checked. 160 X120 with Tracking Quadrant Small Frame rate 15 but will try 7 allow forward,left,right movment checked. Tracked by Relative Position UNCHECKED.

Have to Enable Auto Tracking through script:

Puts camera in auto track mode

ControlCommand("Camera", CameraAutoTracking)

Say("Auto tracking enabled")

========================================

Although color tracking is working, the face detect and movement tracking are not working very well at all. I am sure that it is something that I am doing wrong. About the time that I am making some headway, the camera goes green and then stops working.

I don't know who posted, but I am sure you can do a search for "camera" or "camera wiring" and find it.

Good Luck!

Mel

winston60 did the first post on wiring up the camera to direct power from the EZ-B. I did it myself on two of my bots and they both work great! Remove the battery from the camera and wire the 3 leads from the servo connector direct to the board. I use this in B.O.B now for several months and just tested out my B9 with the same set up. No problems. I will look when I get home to see if I have a link to the images he showed where to wire it.

@bret.tallent I am also now at the point where I need to do this with the camera but the video I saw did not have a very good close up of exactly where the white wire solders to the board. Do you have a close up picture of this?

Or does anyone else have a good close up?

Thanks in advance....

@MovieMaker I am following your progress on this. Camera tracking is next on my list

Looks as if I need to do the same thing, and I have the same problem you guys have. Need much more detail on hard wiring the camera. I really don't want to screw up my camera! I'm also stuck (still) with the motor driver problem. (See my post in the "Question about Gizmo" thread)

Looks like I am going to have to do the same thing you guys are doing. I would like to have much more detail on wiring the camera. I really don't want to screw up my camera! I'm also dead in the water on my motor driver. (See my post in the "For robotz12248 about Gizmo thread). I sure wish DJ could find some time to give us all a helping hand. I'm sure he has the answers. In the meantime lets all keep plugging away at it and perhaps we'll resolve it ourselves.

What is the problem with your motor driver?

Expirementing is your solution to any task. I've produced the best and easiest interface and other than physically doing it for you, I can only recommend testing, tutorials, and Expirementation.

I try to answer as best I can. However, time is a luxury. In order for you to have an ez robot website and product, it requires my development time and intervention.

Ok, I understand.

@ DJ :

I ,for one, understand that your time is at a premium. I also fully understand that you are dedicating your time to R&D and marketing in an attempt to give us an ever improving product at a fair and reasonable price. However, I do suggest that you keep in mind, those that have previously purchased your product and have the expectation (and rightly so, I believe) that, that product will preform as it was described or stated. Allow me to also point out that your customers; in most cases; have made a substanial financial investment not only in your product, but in support components as well. Considering the demands on your time, you may wish to consider putting in place, personnel that can dedicate their time to customer support and would be available to aid customers in resolving any problems they may encounter using your product. If your customers have made a sincere and concerted effort, using all the resources available to them, to resolve their issues and then find all their efforts exhausted, I believe it would be entirely acceptable and understandable that they would expect assistance from you, the manufacturer, to help them obtain a resolution. I, personally, would be quite dissappointed and dissatified to find myself in the position of having made a sustanial investment of time, effort and money only to discover that it was all in vain and find myself in possesion of a product that has become totally useless to me. I'm sure I would not be alone in that sentiment. I once made the statement that you may well prove to be the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the robotics world. I'm also quite sure that at some point Mr. Jobs and Mr. Gates came to understand the importance of "customer support" after the sale. I further believe that they would not have attained the level of sucess they did, without that understanding and practice. It is my sincere hope that you do not lose sight of your original concept and commitment to those that had the dream of building and using robotics to enhance their lives.I do hope you accept these thoughts as constructive criticism and fodder for retrospective contemplation. With respect, Lloyd Cooper

@ MEL :

Sorry I misunderstood your question. The camera settings I have are as follows: EZB connected to COM 3 Horizontal camera servo is conected to pin D8 (Head "Tilt" Servo) Min. 30 / Max. 70 Vertical camera servo is connected to pin D9 (Head "Pan" Servo) Min. 1 / Max 100

Camera configuration: Camera servo Tracking, Enabled (Checked) Movement Tracking, Enabled (Checked) Allow Left/Right Movement, Enabled (Checked) Frames per second: have tried 3, 7, 10, and 30 Track by Relative Position, Disabled (Not checked) Motion delay, 50 ms

I also added a script command to the Main Script. ControlCommand("CameraAutoTracking",scriptstart) I have checked the boxes for "Face", "Color", "Motion".

I charged the camera battery for several hours prior to todays testing. In spite of that when I turned the camera on the battery level very quickly showed very low. The image was showing only in black and white and when "Motion" box was checked the camera just "jittered" around as if it were trying to locate an image. As soon as I "Uncheck" the motion box, the jittering stops. Based on your (and others) comments I supect that part of the problem is low operating voltage at the camera. I've taken note that some of you have supplied power to the camera from the EZ-B and resolved the operating power issue. I am going to attemp to view the available tutorials again and consider whether I can feel confident in modifiying the camera. Unfortunately I wasn"t able to locate the post from Winsth(?) on the camera mod. Would appreciate it if someone could point me to it. I will make another attemp to locate it however. Please keep us advised to your progress, as well as any one else's. Thank you

I tried just the color ball part of things. It took me about 3 days of trying EVERYTHING. I know D.J. is busy, but it is so hard to do all of this at my age. I am a senior. This is probably my LAST attempt to do this sort of thing. I have enjoyed Leaf for the last 2-3 years and having an A.I. Robot in the family is very enjoyable. I don't have the patience I used to have when I was 20. I tried using the chat. It hooked up and said welcome, but after about 10-15 minutes without an answer, I disconnected. I am actual tired after 40 years of Building robots. I want to enjoy operating them without pioneering and engineering them. I had the same problem with microcomputers in 1975-80. There was certain software that came out and after paying $2,000 for the software, I would find it did not work. Or , it just barely worked so I would have to program it until it Did work. I learned a lot about programming and it was a lot of fun. But, that is why I ordered Q.BO. Q.BO should just work out of the box. But, if it did, I would be surprised. On the other side of the coin, D.J. has the absolute BEST product that is available right now. I have lost thousands of dollars trying to learn ROS, Microsoft Robotics Studio,I have built Four turtles and they just sit there without doing anything useful. Now is the time where D.J. has made it possible with LESS work to achieve the goals that I had when I was a child. But, Is he going to provide what we need in time or not. He is a good man with lots of smarts and his products are really good. But, I haven't been able to follow all of the lessons verbatim and they work as advertised. Like he said, it takes Experimenting on top of what he has provided. He has saved us literally THOUSANDS of hours of work. But, I have a feeling that we still need to add scores if not hundreds of hours more to get where we want to be.

The preceding was my own opinion and not stated as a fact.

I got off the subject. But I was saying start with the RED or whatever color you like. Let it track that alone. Then add more to it. When I activated face and motion, it did not do Anything with the face tracking. And the motion tracking was so slow it wasn't any good. I tried Auto-Tracking and it just slowed the whole process down and it started to shake. The only difference I could see was the digital ports were different. Maybe it HAS to be D0 and D1 like he has it in the tutorial. I have D6 and D7. But, a digital port is a digital port.

Don't give up on Gizmo. He is a cute robot. I think that he is going to be swell. WE both just have to have a little patience which is something I never had before.

P.S.

Oh, I wanted to tell you that you are not supposed to put the servos in 1-100 positions. It says somewhere they need to be in 10-90 min and max. Of course I put mine on 5 because it wasn't going where I needed it to.

Wait, I have a GREAT idea. I just put all my robots up in the closet. I have ate,slept and breathed robots for so many years. I am taking a break!

Now, for the Great idea. Why don't we the community take on ONE problem at a time and solve it. I will give you an example. We are trying to do Color tracking. So, one of us starts it and the others work with it all day and post the answers we find to our experiments. By the end of 1 or 2 days, we will have that problem solved. Then go on to the next problem. By observing what others have found combined to what we have found, we can work together to solve the problem and let D.J. do his work. Of course, we probably need more than one or two people. But maybe not. What do you think?

I will start back on the 7th of June and pull my robots out of the closet and start experimenting again. I have just had too much for one lifetime.

Tell me what you guys think.

@ Mel : My situation is very similar to yours. I am 64 years old and am a disabled Vietnam Vet and a stroke surviver. I face many physical challenges ever day of my life. However, I am a very determined individual. I have , in essence, been constructing Gizmo with one hand, using various holding fixtures of my own design to aid myself. Like many stroke victims my mind has also been affected along with my body. I have had to develop methods for remembering and recalling things. I write EVERYTHING down and store it on one of my laptops that is dedicated solely to that purpose. I also keep a note book where I have copied information from this forum and other websites to aid myself. My speech is also affected but I retain the ability to write. The words come to me slowly at times, but I presist.

My interest in robotics began as a desire to construct a personal assistant robot that might make my life a bit easier and help me to do things I otherwise would not be able to do physically. I also had hopes that if I could suceed I might be able to build robots to aid others with physical disabilites and challenges. Unfortunately my goal remains aloof due to the problems I have encountered during my attemps to build Gizmo. As I stated before, I am a very determined person and am not easily deterred. I will continue my efforts and hope that I might someday suceed in building my robot. I, like you, don't have the patience I once had and it would be so refreshing to recieve a helping hand along the way and not have to do everything the long, hard and difficult way. I think you and I, at our age,learned long ago there is very little that every comes easily. We can only hope that some of the younger builders might see fit to offer us a little kind assistance. Lloyd

That is Right! I am a stroke survivor. It took my WHOLE left side of my face,mouth,arms,legs. I started building robots as Theraphy. After a year, I took a Cat-Scan and I had completely healed. The Lord Blessed me. Except I have about a ten year memory lapse that is gone forever. Since, I have had a six bipass surgery about a year ago and it saved my life. I never smoke, drank or did drugs or cigarettes. We have a lot in common.

That is Right! I am a stroke survivor. It took my WHOLE left side of my face,mouth,arms,legs. I started building robots as Theraphy. After a year, I took a Cat-Scan and I had completely healed. The Lord Blessed me. Except I have about a ten year memory lapse that is gone forever. Since, I have had a six bipass surgery about a year ago and it saved my life. I never smoke, drank or did drugs or cigarettes. We have a lot in common.

One of the reasons that I am so in a hurry to get answers is because I don't know how much longer I have.

@ Mel : Believe me . I understand completely. We never know when our last day might come. I try not to think about it. I waited over 50 years to meet my current wife. I truly believe that she is my "REWARD" for perservering through all that life has thrown my way. It would be so nice to have some easy days in our latter days.

That is Amazing. I waited 42 years to meet my soul-mate. I have enjoyed her ever since.

Yep! These are supposed to be our Golden Years.

I think Mel"s (Moviemaker) idea is a good one. Lots of minds working to resolve one problem at a time! I really think it would benefit everyone. So, I'm going to be the first to propose a target problem. The L289N dual motor driver. (Its the one DJ now has in his store) I have outlined the problem I am having with it in my post, "Motor Drivers". Lets start with the wiring, or hook up. What has worked and what hasn't worked for everyone? Thanks, Lloyd

Of course in order to participate in the problem solving, it would help to have that particular hardware which I don't. But, SOMEONE Must.