Comments on: Projects Repository

By: Petr Baudis

Petr Baudis — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:39:20 +0000

Hi! I’m sorry for the double posting; there is another question I have, how to power the router? It is supposed to take in 5V at up to 2A, is it safe to draw this from the Roomba battery (14.5V) using a DCDC voltage converter? AIUI, that would be putting 0.7A through the two miniDIM pins, not sure if that’s safe, and how well the battery will take it either. If one would use an extra battery to power the computer, what is the best choice?

By: Enric

Enric — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:04:01 +0000

Hi, I am a 23 years old guy from Barcelona. I have finished this year my electronics engineering and I have been working in the robotics department the whole year. My last task before leaving is prepare some exercices for the next years students using a Roomba.
I would like to know what exactly the serial port sends to the roomba, just to try to do the same with a PIC or an FPGA, to be able to put a code into the roomba and not control it with the PC.
Another great thing it is if there is someone using visual c++ instead of Java because we don’t do anything with Java.

Thanks a lot!

By: Dan Wolfson

Dan Wolfson — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:17:53 +0000

I am brand new to this forum and to Roomba hacking so please forgive my ignorance. I have an older Roomba model 4275 that I want to use for a project for mobility-impaired elderly people. I want to adapt the return-to-charging-base system to work on a small electric cart. The user would press a button on the base station and the cart would drive itself over to the base station. Does anyone have experience doing this or know where to point me? Thanks!

By: todbot

todbot — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:39:01 +0000

Hi Cordell, Yes, it's unfortunate that Linksys discontinued the WRTSL54GS. But fortunately, Asus has been producing an even better router called the Asus WL-500gU, which I think is basically the same as the WL-500GP, but is fully functional. MightyOhm has written up a great set of articles on how to get the Asus WL-500gU working with a custom OpenWrt Linux distro and with serial drivers for things like Arduino and Roomba. He was building a WiFi Radio, but all the techniques he uses work great for adding a WRT-based Linux box to your Roomba.

By: Cordell

Cordell — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:20:10 +0000

Hey there, great book, I picked it up about a year ago with this big project in mind. I wanted to connect a webcam and USB missile launcher to a wireless router and make an internet connected patrolling robot to shoot my cat when I’m in the office. However, I never even got started because of the limited choices in wireless routers out there with USB ports.

i cannot find the one from the book the WRTSL54GS, after a year searching on ebay. So I tried buying an Asus WL-500gP but the wireless firmware doesn’t work once you install linux, there are tons of posts on this. You can replace the wireless board but I didn’t want that hassle.

Do you know of anyone that has successfully hooked up Wireless Roombacam with a modern router? and if so I would love to know what version or model.

Thanks, great book I can’t wait to get started.

By: todbot

todbot — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:00:25 +0000

Hmm, I’m not quite sure. Perhaps it got set to a different baud rate? What version of Roomba do you have?

By: Egomy

Egomy — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:57:33 +0000

hi tod,

it’s me again. i’ve actually succeeded in using the Roomba as a remote surveillance tool, attaching a netbook and webcam ontop of it. it was working until a while ago when it ran out of battery, i actually charged it and now it doesn’t seem to be detecting the roomba.

when i ran roombaview, it says “connected. sensors invalid. unplugged?”
any idea where the problem could lie?
really need some help here, my project’s due on monday and this suddenly happens.
Thanks in advance!

By: todbot

todbot — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:20:55 +0000

Hi Egomy,
Java applets run on the client computer, not on the server, so the roombaview applet would have to be rewritten to be a network client to a newly written roombaview server module on tomcat. Not a small undertaking. However, the new maintainers of the RoombaComm are extending it to have a network client, so eventually we’ll have something like what you want.

By: Egomy

Egomy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:45:54 +0000

Hi Tod,

just wondering if it’s possible to run roombaview as an applet running on a tomcat server.

i’ve tried exporting the program as an applet using Processing, but it seems that it comes up blank everytime. Is it even possible to be doing this?

Thanks!

By: todbot

todbot — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:43:28 +0000

Hi MovieMaker,
It’s not just you, it looks like others have had problems too. I think perhaps when I did my Arduino-Roomba hacks, the Arduino board or the Roomba had slightly different electronics.

Fortunately, someone who has a newer Roomba figured out a way to make it work using SoftSerial instead of normal Serial. Check out: http://www.netfluvia.org/layer8/?p=127