Previously I posted an article on handling EV3g binary Mailbox messages under Python3. Since then I have carried on working on this class, along with adding a handler class.
Improved Mailbox Handling
One of the things I wasn’t so keen on with my implementation was the need to specify the type of Mailbox value, i.e. BOOL, NUMBER, or TEXT. Python’s variables have their own type, so the code has been adjusted to use the value’s own type to determine the binary payload format. It is still possible to coerce the type:
from ev3mailbox import EV3Mailbox
float_msg = EV3Mailbox("Pi", 3.1415)
# Coerce to a string
string_msg = EV3Mailbox("Pie", 3.1415, str)
These changes have made the use of this side of the code much cleaner.
Mailbox I/O Handler
Whilst working on my use case for the original code, I had been working on the principle that I’d be using it in a simple synchronous send/receive pattern. This worked well, until I started using threads at both sides of the ev3dev <-> EV3g link. Once threads were in the mix, there’s a risk that the bt_socket.recv(…) call could actually receive a message that wasn’t destined for that particular call, but for another area of the program.
The solution to the above problem was to implement a receiving thread that deals with all the socket.recv(…) calls. Each message is decoded, and then each Mailbox name has its own FIFO of message objects. It’s a deliberate choice to maintain the list of objects, rather than just their values, so that they can be forced to floats if it’s known they may be very small – see my previous post about that problem.
The new class implements a handler that will deal with all the Bluetooth and thread side of things. All that’s then required to do is call send(…), get(…), or stop() on the class instance:
from ev3messages import EV3Messages
handler = EV3Message(bt_mac_address)
handler.send("Name", value)
msg = handler.get("ANOther")
value = msg.value
handler.stop()
The calls to send(…) and get(…) should (!) be thread safe, so calls to get(…) wait on receiving a message of the requested name.
My idea required being able to send EV3 Mailbox messages via Bluetooth between ev3dev and a stock EV3 running the EV3g language – from Python. I’m new to Python, I’m a Perl programmer at heart, so this was somewhat of a learning curve moment. I had to get to grips with Bluetooth (not that difficult as I’m used the IP networking) and Python at the same time.
I figured that one of the major selling points of Python was its extensive library of support functions, so set to looking for something providing EV3 Mailbox handling. My research wasn’t as fruitful as I’d hoped for. I could find various chunks of code but either they were flawed in their behaviour, or much more heavyweight than I wanted. So I decided to jump in feet first and write my own library.
I’d written a library for App Inventor 2 [0][1][2][3][4] that would encode & decode EV3 Mailbox payloads before, so this wasn’t too daunting a task. One aspect of Mailbox messages is that there isn’t an identifier within the payload that identifies the content: String, Float (IEE754 32 bit), Boolean. Normally this is handled in EV3g by expecting a specific type relating to the message name – i.e. a message called “status” would be defined to always be a Boolean, but “command” would always be a String – the code forces the type to remain constant. However, the type of the payload can be deduced to some extent, so I decide that I’d implement that within the Python class:
Payload length = 1 byte => Boolean
Payload length = 4 bytes
Last byte != NULL or NULL in the other bytes => Float
Otherwise => String
All other payloads => String
The only issue with the logic above is that really, really, small numbers may get decoded as strings, e.g. “@@@\x00” would get seen as a string, not 5.90052e-39 which is also a valid decode of it. As such I also implemented a .force_float() method which will re-decode the payload.
from ev3mailbox import EV3Mailbox as Mailbox
message = EV3Mailbox.encode("Name", "Message value", Mailbox.Type.TEXT)
print(message)
# Data from Bluetooth
mailbox = EV3Mailbox.decode(payload)
print(mailbox)
As in my previous post, I’ve been modelling parts of my loom. This update covers the two most recent.
Pinch Rollers
At the back of the loom there is the pinch roller mechanism. This is used to control the tension of the warp threads from the back of the loom towards the front. High tension is needed when weaving, but it prevents the lifter bar (referred to later) from lowering properly. Using the pinch rollers, the tension in the loom can be dropped by moving the warp threads forward at the back of the loom. Then when the pattern has been set and the lifter bar raised, the tension can be reintroduced by winding the cloth up at the front.
Pinch Rollers
The bobbin frame support structure, in the previous post, connects to the back of these rollers. The bobbin winder, also in the previous post connects to the lefthand side of the pinch rollers as shown.
Adding the pinch rollers, bobin frame and support, and bobbin winder all together, the over-all model now looks like:
Lifter Bar
Whilst the back of the loom was off – I had to remove the pinch rollers to work out how I’d built them originally – I decided I’d model one of the most important parts of the loom, since it was visible. This is the lifter bar. It is one half of the mechanism that provides the Jacquard ability. It has 32 pins in it, that when one is engaged into the bottom eyelet of a heddle allows that one to be lifted up. There is an equivalent static bar at the front which holds the heddles down if needed.
Lifter Bar
This mechanism slides up and down along some long axles. These pass through the holes in the ends of the bars, and through some of the holes in the frames. There are gear racks at the back and sides which provide the lifting force. The lifting mechanism has to be offset away from the pins as the pin setting mechanism rides along underneath the whole Jacquard structure.
Well, I’m going to put the loom back together, and check that all my new parts actually do what I wanted them to. It’s still loaded with wool from the Mytholmroyd show at the end of January, so I’m going to run that through and then empty the loom.
I’ve then got a little bit of coding to do, to support the bobbin winder – i.e. change the direction of the motor. There’s no need to use the pinch rollers to wind the warp threads on to a drum anymore, so I can repurpose that function to the winder.
I’ve got some other things I need to focus on, and this 3D modelling is quite intensive, so I’m going to take a break from that, and will look to model some more parts in a few weeks time.
Ever since I started to show my LEGO® loom on this blog, Facebook and YouTube, I’ve had people ask me for build instructions. I’ve always said that I’d make them, and I will stick to that … but it’s a BIG task, and will take a long time.
Recently I’ve been making changes to the loom, so have been removing old parts and making new modules to replace them. What I decided to do as I went along was to actually model the parts I was removing, and to model the new parts as I went. This way I have the old parts for reference should I ever want to look back on them in the future, and the new parts have been modelled from the start. As time goes by I intend modelling the separate “modules” of the loom, and then build up a body of work of all the sections. I’ll still need to model the main framework of it, but that will come in time.
So, without further ado, here are the parts I’ve done so far.
Warp Thread Drum
3D render of the old warp drum
This is the original warp thread winding drum. This was used at the back of the loom and stored the warp threads for feeding in to the loom. In my original build I used to have to wind the warp threads on, en masse, by hand. This suffered from a) being tedious, and b) the threads would wind on at different rates. Since the threads didn’t lie completely flat on top of each other, the drum would end up with different “thicknesses” of threads, resulting in some threads winding on faster than others – since C = 2πr. When the loom was running it’d pull all the threads through at the same rate. Due to the different winding thicknesses, this would either result in some threads getting very slack or, more commonly, some threads getting very very tight.
My solution to the differential winding of the warp drum, was to build a set of pinch rollers, that the warp threads went though, and a gearbox that drove the drum.
One of two gearboxes – one either side of the loom to drive the warp thread drum.
The pinch rollers would be in use during weaving, to provide a tension control between the back of the loom and the cloth take-up drum at the front. They would ensure that all the threads passed through the loom at the same speed.
The gearbox would be engaged when loading the warp drum. When engaged, the warp thread drum would rotate at a “surface speed” ever so slightly faster than the feed rate of the pinch rollers – the white clutch gear would deal with any mismatch in speeds. When weaving the gearbox would be flipped over to a gear with a friction pin, just to stop the warp drum free-spinning.
This appeared to work well, until the last time I loaded the loom. I was struggling with the threads getting caught up in the pinch rollers as they wound on. After watching it load, and thinking on it, it was the same differential speed problem as in the original loom, but in reverse. Now, as the threads wound on, they were winding on at different speeds due to not winding on flat. This was exacerbated by the use of the clutch gear. This meant that the warp drum rotated at the slowest speed, i.e. that of the thickest wound thread. The threads winding on to the thinner areas therefore became slacker, and would get caught on the pinch rollers, ultimately winding back inside them.
My answer to the warp threads running at different speeds has been to make a frame that has 32 individual bobbins; one for each thread. I’ve yet to test that it actually works, but will do in the next few days. Now each thread can unwind at its own speed, and not be affected by its neighbour.
I’ve designed a frame that can hold them all, in the manner of a cartridge. This way it can be loaded up away from the loom if desired, and then clipped in to place.
Bobbin frame
Each bobbin has a black and dark grey disc, and a friction pin on one end and an axle on the other. Half of them have the friction pin on the black side, and the other half on the grey side. The friction pin is simply to stop the bobbin from free-spinning. All the bobbins will be wound in the same orientation with respect to the black/grey discs. This means that when they are all installed half will unwind clockwise, and the other half anti-clockwise. This is so that the threads don’t rub against each other (too much). The frame also has a set of long axles to act as thread separators. This is so that the threads don’t get twisted together, thus preventing them unwinding properly.
To support the bobbin frame and to allow it to be easily removed and installed, a simple support structure was needed.
Support frame
The red pin bushes at the top are used to lock the bobbin frame down on to the support. The bobbin frame itself has axle pins underneath that locate into the angled beams on top at the back. The whole thing is supported on the long angled arms, set at a 3:4:5 Pythagorean angle.
Although I expect to wind the bobbins using my main winder, used for the weft threads, I wanted a winder mounted on the loom itself.
Bobbin winder
To achieve this a small winder has been made where there are two devices, dog teeth, that engage with the six holes on “wedge wheel” discs on the bobbins. The bottom one hinges out, and the top one slides up and is driven by the same motor that powers the pinch rollers. A single speed gearbox is used to engage/disengage the motor. This allows for it to be used when the loom is empty, and not powered when the loom is in operation.
The plan is to always wind bobbins with the black disc on the bottom, held by the red dog teeth. This will ensure that all the bobbins are wound in the same orientation.
Whilst I’ve been working on some of the issues, I thought I’d tackle the shuttle.
Weft shuttle
This has generally worked well, but now and again has got caught up on the threads as it’s passed through. This has been down the the “shed” (the hole inside the top and bottom warp threads being a little bit too small, and snagging the horizontal bar at the front. This bar is used to ensure that the weft comes out from the middle of the shuttle.
In my original design this bar sat 6L away from the shuttle. The supports that hold that bar in place, and the long bobbin between them, are now 5L and the bobbin sits at 2½L away. It may not make much difference; I have yet to test. If 5L is too short it is easy to modify it back to 6L.
I build all my models in Bricksmith. I’ve used it for years, and know how to drive it. I’ve had a play with Stud.io recently, and still don’t (yet) get on with it. However, I really like the renderer that comes with it. So, I’ve been building my models in Bricksmith and using Eyesight, from Stud.io, to make the pictures seen in this article.
What’s Next?
Well, I still need to test that this all works. That’s something for this week, but I think Captain Marvel comes first 🙂
I tried to take some video of the Weav3r loom in operation today – with it empty of threads so that the workings of it could be seen. It hasn’t come out quite how I wanted, but it does show most of what I wanted. I did have a little bit of fun with speeding up parts of it. It sounds quite funny 🙂
I’ve been working on the loom for some time now, trying to iron out some of the issues with it. The main issues were down to the pattern setter, the ‘Jacquard’, getting jammed. This was mainly down to two problems: 1) uncontrolled tension in the warp threads, and 2) vibrations during weaving causing the floating pins to move out of place. To explain these issues, I built a demonstration model.
Demonstration
When I’ve shown the loom off at exhibitions, I’ve struggled to explain, easily, how the pattern setting mechanism works. So, to make it simpler I built a little model of the mechanism, as shown in the picture below. There are two beams with floating pins inside. The picture below shows the front beam with 3/5 of the pins set forward. The beam behind the vertical yellow axles, the “heddles”, can lift upward.
Demonstrator during pattern set.
The picture below shows the lifting beam in the upmost location, thus showing how the patterns are set on the heddles.
Demonstrator during “weaving”
Both of the pictures above also show where the problems with the loom occur.
Problem #1
The first problem is when setting the pattern. The loom needs the heddles to be in their lowest position for the pins to move back and forth. In the original build of the loom, there was only one way of maintaining tension in the warp threads which was by applying friction to the warp thread supply drum. Due to how the loom was loaded with threads, and this drum wound, it was probable that the tensions would be mismatched across the threads. As the loom worked though row by row, some threads could end up much higher tension than the others. This would cause issues when the setter beam needed to drop as it couldn’t pull down against that tension, resulting in the setter beam being slightly crooked. When the pin setter tried to move the pins, they would not line up with the rear bar’s holes resulting in the entire mechanism jamming up.
Problem #2
The second picture shows how the vibrations could be a problem. As the shuttle would pass from side to side there would be a small amount of vibration, or buzz, from the motors. This would cause the unsecured pins on the front beam to precess backwards, under the heddles that had been lifted. Again, when the bar was lowered it would not be able to move to its lowest position due to these precessed pins blocking its path.
Solution #1
The solution to problem #1 was to build a complete replacement to the original thread tensioner. This time a set of 8 driven pinch rollers was implemented, along with a gearbox to control the warp thread supply drum.
Warp thread pinch rollers
The picture above shows the new pinch rollers and the warp supply drum. There is a gearbox, shown in the picture below, that connects the drive of the pinch rollers to the warp supply drum.
Warp thread supply drum gearbox
When the gearbox is selected in one direction the supply drum rotates very slightly faster than the pinch rollers, with a white clutch gear for protection. This allows for much faster loading of the loom. The threads can be placed in the rollers and clamped down, and then tied to the drum. The loom can then be set to wind the threads up on the drum, with all threads at equal tension. Moving the gear to the other selection connects the drum to a gear on a blue axle pin. This simply applies some friction to prevent the drum from spinning uncontrolled as the loom weaves. Neutral allows for rapid removal of threads when needed.
Warp pinch lower rollers
The lower pinch rollers, as shown above, are all driven by a large EV3 motor. When weaving, just before the heddles are lowered, these rollers will move the thread forward by one weft thickness (adjustable during operation), thus lowering the tension in the loom. Tension is restored when the cloth is wound forward on to the take-up drum at the front.
Loading warp threads
Loading the threads is simple – 4 threads per pinch roller, and then clamped in place with the top rollers as shown below.
Warp threads clamped in the pinch rollers
Solution #2
Various solutions to the vibration problem were tried, most involving attempts to increase the sliding friction on the pins. None of them worked; no solution to applying just a little friction in a LEGO-only manner could be found. Instead, the simple solution of tilting the loom slightly forward was tried. This would mean that if the pins were to precess, that they would move forward rather than backward due to the slight slope. Raising the back of the loom up by 1.5M over a distance of 48M is just about 2°, so not a massive tilt, but just enough. The beams running under the loom, as shown below, give that tilt.
Beams running under the loom to tilt it.
Photoshoot
Whilst I was taking pics of various parts, I decided to take (hopefully) some good pics of the rest of it whilst I was at it. I include those below.
Some of the pattern pins, as seen from the front.
The grey racking at the front of the picture above has a partner rack at the back. This is used by the pattern setter to move left and right.
The cloth drum width sensor.
The white and blue flap above is connected to the medium motor. After each pass of the shuttle, the motor lifts the flap, and then lowers it gently until it stalls. The motor angle is then used to compute how wide the cloth take-up drum has become. That in turn is then used to compute the angle of rotation needed to ensure a consistent movement of the cloth, i.e. the width of the weft. This should be the same distance as the pinch rollers will move. The thickness of the weft can be adjusted during operation, along with minor adjustments to the drum and pinch roller positions.
Some of the heddles set, and the reed outward.
Part of the rear heddle beam lift mechanism.
The picture above shows part of the rear beam lift mechanism. There is an identical rack on the righthand side of the loom, along with lifting racks at the ends of the beam.
Underneath showing the Jacquard pins, and the setter.
The light grey structure is the bottom of the pin setting mechanism. This moves left and right, under the pins, pushing the pins back and forth. It is programmed to set the pins in both directions, rather than returning to the ‘start’ on each shuttle pass.
Loom front.
Loom rear.
The shuttle loaded with thread.
The “Brain” of the system.
The entire loom is controlled by the EV3 shown above. Bluetooth is used to coordinate the actions of the other two EV3s. One EV3 manages the heddles setter (2 motors), heddle lifter (1 motor) and the reed (1 motor). The other EV3 manages the shuttle (1 motor), pinch rollers (1 motor), cloth wind drum (1 motor) and drum sensor (1 motor).
Pattern board and caddy.
The “Brain” in its scanning mode.
The pattern boards can be used to set up what to weave. They are 16×32 boards, with the pattern woven across the middle 16 warp threads, using 32 wefts. A plain “up, down, up, down” pattern will be woven into the 8 threads either side of the board’s pattern to ensure that the cloth remains in shape.
I’m hoping to take some videos of the loom in action next week and will post them to YouTube.
One of the annoyances I’d had is that the EV3 needs to know the name of the AI2 device in order to send messages to it. Up until now that name has had to be entered in to the AI2 app by the user. This of course is prone to error in different ways. There wasn’t a way of getting this information via the available AI2 components. So, I’ve added to my EV3Mailbox extension. It now has a GetDeviceName call which will extract that information to be used however one wishes. In my code I use this name to send a message to the EV3 on connection, for it to use in return messages. Example AI2 code is as below:
Recently I posted about sending Bluetooth messages from and EV3 to an AI2 app. I decided at the time not to bother considering handling receiving IEEE754 floats as strings would work. Since then I have been thinking about how cluttered the code was, and that AI2 doesn’t easily support libraries of AI2 code. So, I started investigating writing a simple EV3Mailbox extension for AI2. After a bit of learning Java (I’m a Perl programmer at heart) I now have an extension:
EV3Mailbox Extension
The extension is still quite simple, solely handling the packing and unpacking of the message bytes. The Bluetooth comms part will still need to be performed by AI2 code. An example of using this to send/receive messages is as below:
Long-press the BT button. This will bring up a settings box.
Enter the App device’s Bluetooth name in the settings – and press ‘save’. This will be stored, and sent to the EV3. This is so that the EV3 knows where to send its messages to. This must be the same name as shown in the BT connections list on the EV3.
Press “Connect EV3”. This will give the list of BT devices known the the Android device. Choose the correct EV3.
Once the App is connected to the EV3, the EV3 will say “detected”.
Pressing the top, middle, or bottom buttons on the EV3 will send a BT message to the App:
A string for the top button
A number for the middle button
A boolean for the bottom button.
The App will then display the message name and contents in the top two boxes.
You can send string, number or boolean values back to the EV3 via the relevant boxes and buttons.
Recently, on the MINDSTORMS Facebook group, the question was posed about is it possible to receive Bluetooth mailbox messages in an AI2 app from an EV3. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I’d written AI2 code to send BT messages to an EV3, but hadn’t focused on receiving messages. This was the spur to actually get this code written.
It wasn’t too tricky. Receiving the message was simple, but parsing it was the harder part. The format of a message from the EV3, as covered in my update to BT messaging is:
This is received as a string of bytes, so has to be parsed as a list. Add in that there doesn’t appear to be a chr(x) type function in AI2 to convert from a number to its equivalent ASCII character, I have to do some array/list lookups. Thankfully I had that code in place for sending to the EV3.
Code
I’ve got the code to a position that it can hopefully be used for other purposes. I’m releasing what I’ve done so far as a baseline for others to work from. To make the code, linked below, work do the following:
Run the EV3 code first.
Start the AI2 app.
Long-press the BT button. This will bring up a settings box.
Enter the App device’s Bluetooth name in the settings. This will be stored, and sent to the EV3. This is so that the EV3 knows where to send its messages to. This must be the same name as shown in the BT connections list on the EV3.
Press “Connect EV3”. This will give the list of BT devices known the the Android device. Choose the correct EV3.
Once the App is connected to the EV3, the EV3 will say “detected”.
Pressing the top, middle, or bottom buttons on the EV3 will send a BT message to the App.
The App will then display the message name in the top text box, and the message text contents in the bottom box.
The code only handles text message. I have no plans to develop code to handle numbers or booleans. The EV3 code will coerce those data types to strings if sent as a text message. AI2 will coerce strings to numbers if they look correct, so if the EV3 needs to send a number, simply send it as a string, and the AI2 App will still do the Right Thing™.
