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OT! (Completely!) - Wakeboarding System
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rickmcneely
In the last couple of months, I have been involved in what I think is a very cool programming project. My uncle Charlie built a wakeboarding system in his back yard, and I wrote a control program (PC based) that controls it. All of the parameters are adjustable on the fly. You can see our preliminary results here:
Charlie Wakeboarding: Overview: View of Motor and USB components: Additional benefit: You can hear my hillbilly voice on the video! |
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erikm_101
Kick A$$.
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How much did that cost to build? Are you gonna sell it to water parks? --- In Crestron@..., "rickmcneely" <rickmcneely@...> wrote:
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Heath Volmer
Now all it needs is the wake! ;-)
(maybe some underwater cables dragging a "boat" along in front...) Cool Heath Volmer Digital Domain Systems (303) 517-9714 On Apr 3, 2012, at 8:42 AM, rickmcneely wrote: In the last couple of months, I have been involved in what I think is a very cool programming project. My uncle Charlie built a wakeboarding system in his back yard, and I wrote a control program (PC based) that controls it. All of the parameters are adjustable on the fly. You can see our preliminary results here: [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
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rickmcneely
First, thanks for the 'kick a$$'. It cost about $6000, including a few mis-steps, not including the pond. 8k for the pond. If you think about it, it's still cheaper than a decent ski-boat. I have had someone ask about selling the software. I'm really not sure how to price such a thing. It will either be sold or just released.
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Rick --- In Crestron@..., "erikm_101" <erikm101@...> wrote:
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Way Cool! That's a lot cheaper than a wake boat.
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On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 10:55 AM, rickmcneely <rickmcneely@...> wrote:
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Jeremy Weatherford
I've seen a commercial version of this at a water-skiing training
school in Florida. Took me a while to figure out what all the guide-wires for (it wasn't running at the time). On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:27 PM, rickmcneely <rickmcneely@...> wrote: Dom, -- Jeremy Weatherford |
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Brian Phelps
That is amazing dude. What platform are you using? Windows/Mac/*nix?
What language? I have designed some data analysis systems using Linux, PHP, and C that used custom FPGA (Verilog on Xilinx) on PCI boards. Those were the days... You could totally market and sell that as a full time gig. I know someone who would be interested. Did you have to do much paperwork with your locals to put in the pond? That can be a hassle in some parts of the country especially if there is a stream. ------ Sent using Manchester encoded pulses over a link to form packets which contain other higher level packets along with this message and signature which also contain the address to the destination and may arrive over the many router links out of order only to be reordered by the TCP/IP stack in the kernel of the recipient's server and displayed by a program running in userspace on the device you are currently looking at. On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:27 PM, rickmcneely <rickmcneely@...> wrote: ** [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
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Your own personal cable park, cool!
Does the motor have enough torque to support a raley on the turn? I'm having one of these built for me as we speak... Summer should be fun this year! -Neil Dorin On 2012-04-03, at 8:42 AM, "rickmcneely" <rickmcneely@...> wrote: In the last couple of months, I have been involved in what I think is a very cool programming project. My uncle Charlie built a wakeboarding system in his back yard, and I wrote a control program (PC based) that controls it. All of the parameters are adjustable on the fly. You can see our preliminary results here: [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
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rickmcneely
Does the motor have enough torque to support a raley on the turn?The motor is 7.5 horsepower. It will pull a person at 26mph. It has a butt-load (perfectly cremulent word) of torque. Those are beautiful boats! Brian, I used PowerBasic on Windows. It's been under constant development for 25 years, it's VERY fast (compiles to native Win32) and it's just too easy.. Perfect language for windows-based control. The outboard USB boxes come with DLLs that make life a little easier. |
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I'd be happy to test this one out for you, Rick. :)
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On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 10:08 AM, rickmcneely <rickmcneely@...> wrote:
Does the motor have enough torque to support a raley on the turn?The motor is 7.5 horsepower. It will pull a person at 26mph. It has a |
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rickmcneely
I knew I could count on you, Eric!
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I'd be happy to test this one out for you, Rick. :) |
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Jeremy Weatherford
Is that in metric or imperial butt-loads?
Any reason you didn't use a microcontroller for the brain? I hate seeing PCs used for control systems. I'm not sure how many I/Os you need, but something like a Basic Stamp, PICaxe, or Arduino should be more than able to handle it, and will be solid state, low power, and idiot-proof (especially important if you start reselling these things). On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 1:08 PM, rickmcneely <rickmcneely@...> wrote: Does the motor have enough torque to support a raley on the turn?The motor is 7.5 horsepower. ?It will pull a person at 26mph. ?It has a butt-load (perfectly cremulent word) of torque. -- Jeremy Weatherford |
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rickmcneely
Metric all the way, buddy! And if it weren't a one-off, I would've done an embedded system. If someone actually buys the system, I'm sure I will convert it. Windows is not an RTOS. I've been playing with the mBed system. It would be great for something like that.
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Brian Phelps
Great point Jeremy. Unless the USB device he is using is necessary for
some reason or you really need ethernet or some other high level hardware abstraction, then an RTOS isn't even needed or practical. Just program it in to interrupt handlers on a cheap microcontroller which has many A/D converters, buses for everything from mems sensors to sound chips (I2S and I2C) and GPIO. I guarantee this will be way more reliable because it would have no moving parts, less heat, and run 24/7 without trying to upgrade some BS part of the OS or the BIOS battery failing and causing a hang at boot time. Been there done that. Plus you can waterproof/weatherproof that pcb easily. I think there is even Basic for the arduino and I know the Stamp uses basic. What a fun project rick ---- Sent using Manchester encoded pulses over a link to form packets which contain other higher level packets along with this message and signature which also contain the IP address to the destination and may arrive over the many router links out of order only to be reordered by the TCP/IP stack in the kernel of the recipient's server and displayed by a program running in userspace on the device you are currently looking at. On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Jeremy Weatherford <xidus.net@...>wrote: ** [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
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rickmcneely
Since I have one sitting on the shelf, I think that I will use an mBed () controller. Development is in C with a nice Web based UI/IDE. I can use a PC for the front end. That way, one PC could act as a front-end for several systems over ethernet.
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As currently configured, the USB components provide relay outputs, Digital inputs, Variable DC output(motor speed) and a quadrature input for position sensing. Suggestions welcome. (Like you could stop a group of programmers from making suggestions!) --- In Crestron@..., Brian Phelps <lm317t@...> wrote:
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Chip
You could have presented that request to far worse audiences, too - y'know. :)
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- Chip --- In Crestron@..., "rickmcneely" <rickmcneely@...> wrote:
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rickmcneely
I'm pretty sure you're right!
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--- In Crestron@..., "Chip" <cfm@...> wrote:
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Brian Phelps
Thats a 32 bit ARM processor.
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And here come the suggestions... yes I was an embedded developer (mostly FPGAs but some MCU stuff). An 8-bit Atmel board for $19 called the butterfly. You program it or any Atmega in C using a free toolchain and program on Windows. Load it with a serial port on your PC or use an ISP Jtag board like the Dragonfly for more advanced functions. There is no ethernet so you'd have to use RS-485/RS-422. Easier to debug though and less to go wrong in my experience. You don't have to rely on someones possibly buggy TCP/IP stack for the ARM. Where have we seen this before? ---- Sent using Manchester encoded pulses over a link to form packets which contain other higher level packets along with this message and signature which also contain the IP address to the destination and may arrive over the many router links out of order only to be reordered by the TCP/IP stack in the kernel of the recipient's server and displayed by a program running in userspace on the device you are currently looking at. On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 12:29 AM, rickmcneely <rickmcneely@...> wrote:
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rickmcneely
That's a pretty sweet deal. I'll definitely look at that.
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