Dual Boot for Ubuntu 13.04 Dell XPS 15

Procedure to dual boot Dell XPS 15

Original install Windows 7.

Open windows 7 turn off Intel rapid storage technology in windows, boot several times to ensure raid type drive not being used.

Used windows disk manager halved partition, to create space for ubuntu.

Booted several times to make sure all OK.

booted to usb stick with Ubuntu 13.04 and installed Ubuntu.

Prior to this had many issues trying to get it to registed existing OS

in BIOS, not actually bios, new thing!!

Turned off intel secure boot and left intel smart reponse technology on.

No boot install of GRUB

booted to ubuntu on usb and used the following to install boot-repair

sudo apt-get-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && (boot-repair &)

Installed grub to all partitions except the solid state drive.

This gave me grub access with windows.

Went back turned on Intel rapid storage technology in windows, booted several times to sort.

Ubuntu Crash nVidia

Problems with ubuntu installed 12.10 worked for a while then crashed, nothing on screen refused to boot.

Did fresh install from CD worked for a while upgraded drivers for nVidia crashed, needed reinstall. Card GTX 650 TI

found this: from here


After lots of messing around this is the ticket use uname -r to get correct headers

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.5.0-18-generic
sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Notes: ctrl +alt +F7 returns to gui from command line.(ctrl+alt+F1)

xserver can be stopped with sudo stop lightdm at command, lightdm seems to have replaced gdm in 12.10

Ubuntu lower res unity

 ~/.xprofile file. If the file doesn't exist, create it.

export UNITY_LOW_GFX_MODE=1

Remove blur transparity etc

CPL and C++ learning

Working through learning point clouds.

working with openni_view_rgb.cpp

renamed openni_view_mod.cpp

adding in pointer click function to work on events.

pcl — Revision 8190

Machine learning

Having a look at machine learning course on you tube.
See hearing aid for link to the first video


Link to course material

Hearing aids?

Thinking of investigating the use of machine learning possibly independant learning algorythum to improve the performance of hearing aids in areas with multiple noise sources.

Basic principle described above

another method Described here

Looking to remove reliance on matlab or Octave

Possible source??

http://openica.sourceforge.jp/

3d printing like links

http://www.instructables.com/id/Project-RE-by-Samuel-Bernier/

http://www.shapeways.com/gallery?downloadable=1&s=252

http://www.netfabb.com/casestudies/index.php

Swarm Robots

So the aim would be to start thinking about swarm projects:

Here are some links.

http://www.swarm-bots.org/

http://www.swarm-bots.org/first_page_pictures/downtoexplore.jpg

http://www.swarmanoid.org/

I love this video

CPL with kinect

Started using C++ got the kinect functioning with visulisation.

Using SVN 8190?

Running the following code :

source:- http://www.pointclouds.org/documentation/tutorials/openni_grabber.php#openni-grabber

using this to compile with CMakelists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8 FATAL_ERROR)

project(openni_grabber)

find_package(PCL 1.2 REQUIRED)

include_directories(${PCL_INCLUDE_DIRS})
link_directories(${PCL_LIBRARY_DIRS})
add_definitions(${PCL_DEFINITIONS})

add_executable (openni_grabber openni_grabber.cpp)
target_link_libraries (openni_grabber ${PCL_LIBRARIES})

With the following result
used ffmpeg to convert .ogv to .avi

ffmpeg -i out.ogv -vcodec libx264 -vpre medium -crf 24 -threads 0 -acodec copy foo.mkv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KSPYSXg2H8&feature=youtu.be

Using point clouds

So I finially rewired the wiring for the 3d printer and seem to be getting more consistant results.  So its time to move on to the 3d scanning part.

I came across this excellent C++ Library on point cloud manipulation PCL only problem is I need to try and learn some C++ in order to use the library. I've been using this site www.learncpp.com which gives a good start.

C++ IDE for ubuntu

Been trying to decide which IDE to use to do C++ programming in Ubuntu.

Loaded eclipse and spent ages trying to get things to compile, no matter what I did it wouldn't work correctly, used pkg-config plugin still no joy.
Command line compiled fine, gave up and started using it purley as a text editor.

Installed Qt creator instead, similar issues although much better help.

Main issue is trying to use C++ libraries.

useful command when trying to solve pkg-config problems:

pkg-config --list-all >pkglist.txt (this lists all known packages and sends to a file for searching)

posted issue on pkg-config here - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2088584



Decided best way was just to use it to write the .cpp files and use command line compiler.

Using CMakelists.txt and the following:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

and then running the file with ./

Bridgeport power feed

My Bridgeport 2J2 mill when I got it had a broken X and Y powerfeed.  This is the log of getting it functioning.

The Bridgeport has a 6F powerfeed and Eskine control boards, there is no circuit diagram on the web.

The initial indication showed the thermal switch had failed so this was bypassed with 5A fuse wire as you will see in the video perhaps not the best idea :-)

Initial investigation of the problem was done see this video:

As you can see the power resistor went bang!

After lots of looking the common issue tends to be with the capacitors, I spent a lot of time trying to test the capacitors in circuit, this was a dead loss, although it may infer an issue it was never conclusive.
I then decided to remove the capacitors and test them out of circuit, long story short due to the age of the capacitors and circuit board I caused more issues than there was originally. No capacitors were faulty, I
crushed capacitors and de laminating  traces from the board.

This photo shows a capacitor which I damaged whilst removing it and the new replacement solder in place.

This shows a de laminated trace!!

So after this misadventure I decided to try and reverse engineer the board to understand where the problem may be.

I used LT Spice IV  to document the circuit (I didn't finish the circuit, but this is the 80%)

These are the boards that are in the bridgeport mill.

 This is the power feed board above.

This is the changeover board for the X and Y feed.  I was initially confused by the cable colours as some colours were used for different functions.

The review of the circuit showed the issue was with the 110VDC power side so I decided to check the main  rectification circuit diodes and thyristors.

Bang went the traces

Well when your using lashed up electronics be careful of the polarity!!

Connect up backwards and blew the traces of the board.

Reprap adventures in 3d printing

I've been interested in building a 3d printer and have been reviewing www.reprap.org which is a fantastic resource.

So far I've built this with the view to printing parts for the darwin, although the medel is starting to develop.

The design is based on the wolfstrap as this is the easiest to start, then I can print the parts for the next machine.

Hacking an autonomous car

Using the arduino to control a broken r/c car.

The idea is to get the car to drive itself using a PIR sensor to detect object in front.