My gluon has arrived!

[asifjahmed]

I received my module last night -YAY!

So I soldered the FTDI pins on and downloaded the config utility. I have readings from the sensors.

Initial Thoughts::

-GUI looks very nice
-Telemetry was a bit choppy at first, regardless of what i set the refresh values at. However, I disconnected and then reconnected the module and the speed was greatly increased.
-The accelerometers appear to be extremely noisy. This is likely because I am not used to such a high resolution A/D converter - I will just keep playing with it
-The zedGraphs are nice, but the only ones that appeared to give me useful data that was not choppy was Roll, Pitch, and Yaw. Tom - could you please explain a bit which each does?
-I could not get the 3D portion to run. When I launch it, I get a config screen, choose resolution and then the 3d object finally renders, but is frozen and does not move.
-How can I test the pressure sensor? Looking at the telemetry data (height), I was unable to discern a correlation between values and me moving the sensor up and down about a .5 meters.

I didn't get to spend much time with it last night - I will spend more time soon. Although since the Olympics are about to begin I will be a bit tied up watching the TV

Thanks, Tom - so far everything is looking great! And the board is magnificent!

-Jamie

[Tom]

Hi Jamie!

Thanks for the feedback. I should write more information about the configuration utility on the wiki... but I just need some time

Telemetry & graphing
Here you can see some basic information of the telemetry: http://gluonpilot.com/wiki/Communication_frames

In short:
"raw" = 16 bit integer values from the ADC (gyroscopes & acceleroemters).
"processed" = gyroscopes and accelerometers in normal units ("g" and "degrees per second")

See http://gluonpilot.com/wiki/Config_sensors and http://gluonpilot.com/wiki/Config_telemetry
If a portion is too choppy, you can change the update rate in the first tab (WARNING: you need to focus to another textfield before "Writing", this is a small bug that will be fixed soon. Click "Read" to verify your settings. Don't forget to "Burn" when you want the configuration to be saved after a reset)

3D-block
For a speedy telemetry for the 3D-block, I usually set the processed output telemetry values at "2". Also press the button on the module, to reset it to 0 degrees pitch roll and yaw. Does this help? See http://gluonpilot.com/wiki/Config_sensors

pressure sensor
The pressure sensor has a high resolution, but from 0.5 meter difference you get a lot of noise. 1 meter difference should be visible on the graph. Remember that 1m is still a very slight amount of pressure difference. A door opening in the other side of the house will make a bigger pressure difference than 1 meter

Please keep us updated!

[asifjahmed]

Thanks for the reply, Tom.

One more question - the firmware that is currently loaded onto the module (default configuration) - is that source code available?

Also, what IDE do you use to modify it? Do I need a programmer to update this code?

Thanks,

-Jamie

[Tom]

Yes the source code can be found on the google code SVN: http://code.google.com/p/gluonpilot/source/checkout

Once I have a stable & better tested version, I will make it downloadable in a .zip file.

Most steps to get started are in the getting started page (http://www.gluonpilot.com/wiki/Getting_started).
Please let me know if it's unclear!

[asifjahmed]

Thanks, Tom.

I have downloaded all of the code from your repository already, just couldn't figure out which was actually the firmware that is currently loaded on the gluon?

Also, last night I still could not get the 3d cube to work properly, but I wonder if it has something to do with my PC configuration? (Vista, 3GB ram, dual core cpu, etc).

-Jamie