May 17, 2025 Meeting – Chas Ihler – Node-RED for Robotics

Meeting Chat Text

00:24:15 Terry James: Online Store for SRS items.

00:24:19 Terry James: Year around.

00:36:22 James Newton: After decades of seeing these and drooling over them at e.g. country fairs and nearly spending the hundreds to buy it, a friend gave me the add-on set that he had found in the trash and I found the base clamp on ebay for $30 + $10 shipping. And wow… I thought it was going to be junk, but I’m so impressed. Seriously, this is lite, but VERY strong, and so configurable. It’s the Transformer of Vices. And I have my hand drill adapted to a sanding machine in the drill holder, with one of the vice jaws acting as a stand. And SO MANY OTHER USES! Wow…

00:45:34 James Newton: Anyone played with an arducam tof camera? The B0410. It’s advertised for the RasPi but it turns out it will work with a Jetson as well. Inspired by this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftJjDLsaiRc 

00:54:51 James Newton: Here is the datasheet for that Adafruit LV6180X TOF sensor, and it does appear the time can be as much as ~20 or more ms. Section 2.5. It appears that it’s taking MANY readings one after the other and averaging them to produce an average to reduce noise. 

https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/037/608/original/VL6180X_datasheet.pdf

00:56:00 James Newton: An amazing “zero” backlash diff drive, with very good strength despite being 3D printed.

01:05:35 Terry James: Lloyd can you post the ball joint video link in the chat?

01:05:53 James Newton: The ball joint video is:

01:06:42 Terry James: Thank you James.

01:34:40 James Newton: Interestingly enough, the ArduCAM TOF which is about the same range, and accuracy, and gives you 240×180 array for $50, is 120 FPS or 8 ms. But… the RasPi can only do 30 FPS or 33ms because of the processing overhead. However… it also (now) supports the Jetson, but I can’t find the frame rating for that one:

https://blog.arducam.com/time-of-flight-camera-raspberry-pi

(I want one if anyone wants to buy me. LOL)

01:56:54 Terry James: https://www.udemy.com/course/node-red-course/?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=udemyads&utm_campaign=Search_DSA_GammaCatchall_NonP_la.EN_cc.US&campaigntype=Search&portfolio=USA&language=EN&product=Course&test=&audience=DSA&topic=&priority=Gamma&utm_content=deal4584&utm_term=_._ag_162530792106_._ad_700852016379_._kw__._de_c_._dm__._pl__._ti_aud-2297301418005%3Adsa-1456167871416_._li_1027576_._pd__._&matchtype=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21341317636&gbraid=0AAAAADROdO32NoJzpms3c3pKLTKkuv1YP&gclid=CjwKCAjw56DBBhAkEiwAaFsG-u8m2uJPJ1gFXb1MHa96pco4Mbvh9barPb7fbrBOz-Lk3yPnjgYB8hoC1I4QAvD_BwE&couponCode=CP130525US 

01:57:12 Terry James: https://nodered.org 

01:57:47 Terry James: https://github.com/node-red/node-red 

01:59:18 Terry James: NodeRed with Home Assistant:

01:59:19 Terry James: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXcwUdDqXXo 

02:04:25 Terry James: Makers Assemble!

02:04:32 James Newton: Reacted to “Makers Assemble!” with ❤️