SerialPower and > Seventeen thousand RFID cattle

[SAborn]

I see several problems here, and without knowing what the antenna style is its back to blue sky dreaming.

The larger the antenna loop the greater the dead spot hole in the center is, this becomes a problem with close range readings.
Then a smaller antenna loop the lesser the range it has, so there will always be a trade off.

The next problem is the orientation of the antenna to best suit the tag orientation, yet another trade off, as suitable mounting locations are limited.

In many ways the best location for the coils would be in the trough itself, this could be done with a fiberglass insert and the coils embedded or attached to the underside of the insert.

The idea would be to keep the read range to a minimum and aim for reads when the animal bobs it head down to eat, while its day dreaming as many are in the photo they may be just outside the read range.

The quantity of steel reinforcement in the concrete needs to be considered too, as this will add to detuning the antennas regardless of their location.

Can you give a antenna size and the read range expected from it, so we have a mental image of size constraints to active read distance.

This entire project starts with the antennas, the rest is just down line handling from there on.
Get the antenna part wrong and its a fast slippery down hill slide from there on too.

 

[Ray Seidel]

SABorn..........................................................................................
Can you give a antenna size and the read range expected from it, so we have a mental image of size constraints to active read distance.


SAborn...(can you give me your real name?) ...I am liking you more....like a dog with a bone you go for the juggler....sorry to all others for a while we will get back to things picaxe soon...well eventually!

Ian and RayM. and lbenson ..... I am showing you some more early pictures that will help clarify things a little...not a lot but in a little.....SAborn's questions are good.

When you are desperate to try a new idea you do strange things...cardboard and hot-melt glue...why not?

Regards
Ray

 

[SAborn]

Its a little hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like #8 fencing wire in the coil, or a very heavy copper wire used, can you actually get a tuned Q from it.
All my coils have been about 0.38-0.51mm copper wire with around 40 turns. Then you may know a lot more than me here.

So do this mean you are making your own coils and not using a bought one? as i had understood you were to buy these and is why i had asked for a data sheet.

Nothing wrong with cardboard and hot melt glue, i have used it many times myself.

like a dog with a bone you go for the juggler....

I learnt well from a couple of blue healers, although my barks worst than my bite nowdays. (gave up licking myself too)
Now we have gotten to a little show and tell stage here is a couple of photos of a early development board setup i made, and freshly fished out of the bottom of the junk box, it still works.
The bottom of the board has the TMS3705 chip and the eeprom chip on it, the micro on the top is a 16F88 pic.

Pete.

 

[SAborn]

None of which is very pretty work, but it was just for proof on concept, to get the circuit sorted, (a bit like cardboard and hot glue)

Pete.

 

[SAborn]

One reader device that may be suitable as a off the shelf module is this one.
With a read range of around 90cm it should be applicable.

Using the "C" and "P" function it can all be controlled by the receiving PC via serial in a multi reader location.

View attachment Reader and data hdx.pdf

 

[Ray Seidel]

QUOTE=SAborn;196910]Its a little hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like #8 fencing wire in the coil, or a very heavy copper wire used, can you actually get a tuned Q from it.
All my coils have been about 0.38-0.51mm copper wire with around 40 turns. Then you may know a lot more than me here.


Ray..........................................................................................

How resilient are you SABorn? ..... can you withstand criticism ....I expect and hope so.... so in your terms, I will be blunt...you need a shock! to get you into the real world.....

Can I get a tuned Q from it?....what...what....what... are you talking about? ...your disbelief is either real or feigned.....how far back must I go to get your hand on to the basics?

"If you were working for me, I would take you out the back and give you a severe hiding.....you saw the "pole star in this problem" (the coil).... and still you demonstrate a less than 101 understanding of tuned circuits, resonance and skin-effect....you let the side down....and still you still blindly ask for a "Data Sheet"... which even when before you would likely be meaningless???? ...... ok this can all be fixed, sit back and hold your horses....Ian and I will educate you on things concerning resonance.

It is a fools errand to even start talking about what pickaxe can and cannot do (and in that domain I defer to yourself and others as to how to do the do!) IF you, at this stage are persisting in being in "awe" about multi-stranded wire (in this case speaker wire) for prototyping a high-O series resonant tuned circuit...we are in trouble.

The inductance will be 27uH (ufn) and the Q of the inductor will be 200 at 134.2kHz and the self-resonant frequency (ie with parastiic winding capacitance) will be greater than 1.5mHz....you will not achieve this with "spiders web wire".... I think your TMS3075 asks for a 400uH coil... it is a flea-power thing with limited current capacity of the two mosfet coil drivers....the task I approach need amps of circulating current

Ian...help me here....confirm to SABorne the mechanism for achieving high Q inductors.....he is too valuable to leave behind.

Buy them?...buy them? ....can you see the convoluted shape and structure of this prototype????....where do you think I am going to buy one of these?.....if all goes well I would expect to etch the winding on a multilayer PCB and snap it and reassemble it into the form desired.... of course we will have jigs made as previously done before for repeatability

Others will be forgiven, but I value you sufficiently to chastise you on this basic thing....should it be, your background has not been in electronics, then forgive me a little...we will set you right...and then your prototype RFID reader will benefit.....If I am wrong on this assement please correct what you meant to say, now.

SAborn, I see you and others will be good at the "eye candy and logics".... do a crash course on the basics with us...as I will reciprocate with you for picaxe things.....yes/no?

But all that said, you do beautiful work your experimental PCB looks good...did you use protel?..... and on the underside I doubt you used a wave solder but did it by hand....such patience...SMD needs good eyes...well done.

A picture still worth a thousand words...please no faces or full frontals...remain voices over the wire.

Thank you all
Ray

 

[SAborn]

Yes it is a flee powered coil, and it was limited by the internal mosfet drivers, but as it was intended for use with a hand held wand on small battery power, it was sufficient.

More than happy to have a lesson in your understanding of coil design and suitable drivers, as we never stop learning in electronics, regardless of how much we know, there is always more to learn.

You are easy impressed by a circuit board, as to me its a crap board that was over developed and in poor quality, and is why it was in the bottom of the junk box.
It was only a proto type not the finished product.

Wave soldering?? well you might call it that, as i paint a coat of solder paste over the board and "wave" the hot air gun over it, to apply the tinning layer, the rest is just 5 minutes work to glue a few components on.

Protel, no im too cheap for that, and revert to the free ExpressPCB design package.
I made my first board back in high school and have been making circuit boards ever since, there is certainly no black art to making boards.

Ok i have sharpened my pencil and opened my book to a blank page........... let the lesson begin.
Besides who is Henry?? ( and his little sister Milli Henry, and baby brother Micro Henry) are these friends of yours?
(only joking)

 

[Paix]

I can see that you are intent on getting me into trouble Ray. I know lots of things and most of them suggest that me giving SABorn and others 101 lessons in how to make high Q coils is probably not one of them. You have probably given him a good laugh to go with the virtual beating round the back of the shed that you spoke of. I can only assume that you are self employed and a sole trader to boot. Kids will run from you . . . Remember ALL my electronics knowledge is hobby based, albeit over many years. Less hype and emotion, it sometimes gets in the way of the presented facts.

So with the skin effect hi-Q coils are created from thicker wire. At very low frequencies Litz wire, other woven wire and the like are used to effectively increase the surface area. Coil resistance is the enemy when it comes to designing a coil to have a high Q factor.
Interestingly the concept of mHz is worth an entertainment break. MHz is what you meant of course.

The last PDF there was good SABorn. It explained more than a few things about the operation to be expected from a basic HDX tag reader, all in one nutshell

It did look like a very heavy gauge enamelled copper wire from the photograph, but your explanation of speaker wire puts it into context. You should be able to forgive the visual miss-ident given that we realise that it wasn't actually one of your David Baily moments! I was wondering about opportunity metal thefts in your area for a moment. If they steal overhead lines from electrified rail systems, then your infrastructure becomes attractive at some point.

That said, do I see an 'L' shaped configuration being considered – in front of and below the trough?
If it's good for Blue Peter, then it's surely good enough for me.

Interestingly a Q of 200, would give a -3dB bandwidth of around 660Hz at 132.4kHz and 7.5kHz at 1.5Mhz. The Q of the reader antenna is doubtless damped upon receive, in order to have a bandwidth (-3dB) of greater than 15kHz, in order to accommodate a frequency shift of 10kHz.

I have no real concept of how easy it might or might not be to achieve your target inductance of 27µH given the wiring in the photos. I was the one skipping the formulae when reading WW remember.

I can imagine Dippy smiling in the background as he realises that you are going to be driving FETs at 129kHz or so.

I have to go now and make up some feed for my livestock.

Ian

 

[Ray Seidel]

Thanks SAborn...with you soon

hello Ian..."sun warrior"....David Baily who is he...Blue Peter who is he....

I going out to buy a picaxe 20m2 starter kit.....must have a play with.... they telling me here that most people switching over to lookalike thing called "Ardrina"...look it up...come from Italy.....can/will get one of them too
No worries....we merry few will continue apace

Yes/No I am a "design consultant" at least ,what I tell people who for some strange reason pay me money....a whole life to find heaven...it's not turning the nut but knowing which nut to turn...I think that,s what they think....god help me if they ever discover the truth.....no worries I'll migrate and move next door to ...whoever....perhaps Sherwood forest or Stone Henge might be a suitable hide-out.....sorry... is that my David Baily moment?

I have another laptop called an "Alienware m17x" it's keyboard layout causes mispelling, carriage returns and backspace aberrations...I jump between the two for whatever reasons....nHz= MHz=mhZ=...whatever...

OK...well done, you are right about damping immediately after transmission...the resistive load plus the insertion of an additional capacitor to retune the coil to a mid-frequency of 129kHz...is how it's done.

The concept of "reciprocity" is at play here...same coil used for transmit power then listen for replying FSK whisper.....the receiver sensitivity is typically about 20-50uV....if too sensitive the ambient electrical noise starts to bother...and this can come from strange sources such as pulsing electric fences..another huge topic for another time

We are close now to adequately (but not completely) defining the broad problem and proposed solutions including the down loading of data (picaxe)....the skills of RayM and his unswerving project planning skill will shortly be gratefully accepted as will he himself...are you there RayM?

I came looking for Jurjen...can he be contacted somehow?...does anyone know?

Regards
Ray

 

[Ray Seidel]

Hello Guys....went out to buy a picaxe experimental board....none found easy near me here in Melbourne...they seem to no longer want to stock them??????

will go out further on Thursday to get a scarce one (pickaxe and spare chips) I found.....but sure, I could buy over internet and may do that.

but

I came home with with a thing called "arduino"...this is the name of a chap in Italy who designed the initial concept

a large range of pre assembled pcbs is available "over the counter" manufactured by a company about 15km from here.... www.freetronics.com/etherten

they must be in competition with picaxe

see also http://www.freetronics.com/pages/power-over-ethernet-for-arduino

they easy do things like poe (power over ethernet) which as you will see is close to jurjens Serial power....and a lot more...ready made kits sitting there looking at me.....

Is fast, and uses c-style programming code....talks easily to microSM, usb on board, and even talks to the internet with equal ease...."kids" are using it here...?????

for $50-70 I can buy a ready to go working kit, and laptop can easy talk to and power it via usb...I brought one...software is free to download...

Look at the sites above....

Let me digest all this ..... the consequences are obvious to all to see....but where else would I find such interest as yours?

Surely this is the true dawning of the age of the "black-box" two wires in two wires out, and processes inside that no one cares what or how it does what it does....why reinvent wheels?

where do we fit into this new world?...we all knew it was coming... I must have been living under a rock...I looked but did not see...

Sorry guys....I need to think..be back in a little while.

Regards
Ray

 

[MartinM57]

Arduino is hardly unknown in the hobby electronics arena and is discussed here occasionally (this is a PICAXE forum after all) - you haven't made a stunning discovery that will change all our lives

It is a development platform including software and hardware designed to work together. There is a high degree of standardization, such that the software and hardware have been configured that you don't have to be much of a software or hardware guru to get something going. There are many programs written that will run with the standard shields within minutes some of which are quite sophisticated. It is often plug'n'(childs)'play to get it all going and thus empowers the less technically able (which was one of the designers' prime intentions)

The code structure is simplified from C a little, by having an init() & loop() structure and more inbuilt functions.

..a bit/a lot like PICAXE really. Horses for courses...

EDIT: And, of course, there is always the AXE401 which has a PICAXE on an Arduino (physically) compatible base plate. It's quite new and I'm not sure anyone has got, say, PICAXE software to control say an Ethernet shield just yet, but I suppose they may have...see http://www.picaxe.com/docs/axe401.pdf

 

[Ray Seidel]

Hello MartinM57...you are right of course , my perhaps seeming surprise was not meant to come over " like the boy who cried wolf!"... my apology there... it was myself I was stunning...not you all....change is something that will eventually over take us all...no hurry on that front.....like "All quiet on the Western front"... the young men and ideas will push past us and give scant regard..... I hear footsteps Martin...I must adapt...just another personell moment for me....

It is good to see you all have an awareness and understanding of this "other" product range.... I have been away from this "digital" field of endeavour for no more than about three years and I guess it was just a shock to me to discover how things have advanced.... the rate of change of things is riveting for me who like "vanWinkle" was asleep at the wheel...I was doing other things of course.

I am not yet seduced to change horses (or in my case cows) in mid stream...obviously I am getting good help and words from your forum members and this to me is like gold.....I have scanned your form and see good men (no women?) who give sound and learned advise....this is bonus value for me.

As a platform Arduino seems very well presented, I am holding one now.... the concepts developed in the Basic of Picaxe can be transferred to any language one chooses....no matter the wrapping it is the ideas inside I value.

Thank you for talking with me
Ray

 

[MartinM57]

(Ray - note the edit to my post that I made while you were typing....)

 

[SAborn]

While you are playing with Arduino and the new found Awr of the system you might like to have a look at what available from China and other net stores.
Here is just one of many listings.
http://www.aliexpress.com/fm-store/509383/211404684/Arduino-Products_1.html

It can save you a fortune if you shop around.

 

[Paix]

Hello Ray,
You just bought an Arduino? You missed a trick there my old son.

I recently bought a Duinomite-Mega (manufacturer Olimex) – it is made in Bulgaria and sold by Dontronics in Auz among others.. £32 Faster and slightly different to both PICAXE and Arduino, but complimentary. A bit like the old TRS80 as it has an interactive basic interpreter built in and all the interfaces to be a ready to go computer. A pal of mine recently bought an Arduino and yes, it beats the pants off some of the PICAXE, but I pointed out to him that it cost him £30 ish while an 18M2 costs me about £4.50. So what? You say. Well, I'm making ten small incubators and want a bit of flexibility to completely differentiate it from another product. It makes more sense to use ten £4.50 chips with oodles of capacity to spare than it does ten Arduinos. So it's not all to do with just capability. My basic incubator is happily powered from an 08m2 chip at £2.50 a shot. It's a case which. I believe. we here are all agreed upon, that it is indeed a case of horses for courses. Not all the answers are necessarily likely to be PICAXE or Pic. Measure up the bits of your project and you will find that there are several courses and I would be surprised if you don't end up with a selection of horses too.

If you find yourself with time to spare . . . it doesn't seem like it . . . there have been massive developments in the world of SDR (software defined radio) in the past three years. As Martin has pointed out the world seems to be busting out with a plethora of wonderful devices and it seems that most of them have become available in the last two years or so. So you thought you had a problem in the supermarket choosing breakfast cereal with your kids along?

Arduino are pretty much the de facto platform for radio control autopilot development, for example.
I also have a couple of OpenLog boards from SparkFun electronics in the post to me from the USA. They are definitely worth looking at.

See this thread post #3 and read the links. OpenLog with devices from SparkFun or Seed depending on what you need: Micro SD card or Standard sized.
http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?20084-Large-scale-data-logging-RS232-to-USB-disk
There is also another Data logging to a microSD card also going on today.

David Baily was/is an internationally famous award winning photographer.
Blue Peter was/is a BBC TV kids program that used a lot of sticky tape, washing up liquid bottles and toilet roll tubes to make STUFF. They probably use hot melt glue these days. I haven't watched it for more then 30 years – honest. I would give you a link, but you don't need the distraction.

So who's your Dutch friend Rip Van Winkle? It sounds a bit like a fairy tale name to me. The sort that might come from Washington Irving.

We digress though . . .

 

[beefysteve]

Hello all;

I thought I would introduce myself as one of the "lurkers" following this thread.

I find it fascinating, mainly as I am one with a copy of "Scroggie" on my technical
bookshelf, and also because I spent my childhood on a small farm in northern England,
complete with a few tens (not thousands) of cows!

So, I do have a few small thoughts with which to "stir the broth"

Who says the transmitting and receiving antennas have to be the SAME antenna?
Why not make an optimised antenna for each function. A few single turn, low
resistance loops, capable of handling several amps of RF for transmit, and
smaller, more numerous multi-turn loops and possibly pre amplifiers for receive.
The receive loops could be mounted above the back wall of the trough, angled
downwards towards the beast's head. I think it should be possible to get pretty
good discrimination.

Passive infra-red detectors, mounted in the same plane as the receiving antennas
could be used to initiate TX/RX cycles, after all, why waste electricity if
there are no cows with their heads in the trough?
The PIR's could also be used to estimate how long the beast was feeding for.
This would not be absolute, as another beast may "muscle in".

As I see it, the system would work thus:

Wait for PIR activity, which means cows have heads in trough.
Activate the separate transmitter which covers that area and read the tags.
Rinse and repeat as necessary to catch any stragglers.
When the PIR's have gone silent, it's time to get the bucket & spade as the
cows will be doing what they do best.

Steve

 

[Ray Seidel]

Hello Steve....Ian, one day even those chickens will have RFID implants...things discussed here may be back to haunt you in another time and place....

SABorn, elsewhere you advised a member to go without series resistors for LEDs, hmmm....hmmm...of course in things Programming you will more careful, won't you?

First it was Google reading my emails and sneakily putting up things that might interest me in the corner of the screen...now it is Steve "reading my mind"...and now Ian with chickens , what next?
When do you guys ever sleep?.....I am here for another week then back to Dunolly...and Sandra is getting a little suspicious of me hammering away on this computer thing in the dead of night
I find your company intoxicating...Sandra say's get a life "my old son"...I prefer the code "sunshine"....I gave away all my "electronic bits" just recently but kept "Scroggie"...I am moving.

So, Steve...you see a distributed system...one transmitter and many receivers...Reciprocity is not the only way and you saw it...well done....The concept of "many eyes" watching the same event and a process of consensus deciding what was seen..is one answer to the "one-bite at the cherry conundrum".....

To restate things,...On the one hand the transmit process needs high Q to "give you" massive magnetic flux to "light-up" the tag and in sequence the it must reconfigure itself with a new set of parameter for now it is the portal through which it must "be-good at listening to whispers"

Steve , (and others) you saw the obvious, no use the silk purse to be all things to all people....make a good silk purse (transmitter) and surround it with a chorus of many sycophants (receivers)...well done, well done...the fly's eye is now what you are now looking through...can pickaxe merge the data somehow,maybe maybe, maybe ....this is where I was quietly heading before I came to you here...I need others thoughts.

The concept of the "massive array as mentioned earlier"...is not unlike this forum...the small parts can constitute a better whole...sorry guys, my rambling preambles help focus my mid...endure.

Space and time, space and time....where are you? who are you? and how long have you been here?... this is the cow problem.... though it pertains to chickens and sheep and yes even your dog/cat called "betty" and betty my just be a blue heeler...yes/no SABorne?

The concept of PIR or crossing IR beams, as in the manner of a shop-door minder is the reinforcement one need to improve certainty.... pizo electric mini-weigh bridges would be great, but as you say Steve...what comes out the other end is corrosive stuff...

I mentioned mechanical buffers earlier, their perceived role was two fold ....force the cows to assemble directly over a reader, and in its forward projection contain a IR beam arrangement to activate and confirm a impending presence....a bit like an "AND-gate"....

I saw here as you did Steve, the prow of a boat coming through a fog-bank...by the exposed pointy bit you can not tell it's colour or size or even if it's just the beak of a passing bird,...you know something is there and coming in your direction and now is the time to adapt and do something about it....amongst other things, pickaxe may, may,... be able to make the decisions to change behaviour...maybe...maybe...and if one pickaxe cant cope use two or three or within reason, many...I think I have seen this thinking elsewhere on this forum...it all bodes well.

Sorry guys for what must seem turgid thinking here....I would as you, do it alone anyhow...at least this way ideas flow and problems are discussed alone or in union ahead of time and future surprises a fewer....words are cheap and even a dozen picaxes are cheap if the do what has to be done....do not be inhibited in blue sky dreaming by scale....at least that's how I proceed...the timid will not inherit the earth...where are the young guns? where is Jurjen?

I resigned my self some time ago to linger and "better think through a problem" before even picking up a soldering iron....I have only ten fingers and nine have been burnt on hasty,....hasty...hasty.... wel, you know what I mea.

On a lighter note, let me tell you how to steal a race horse....

the horse may be worth many thousands of dollars(pounds/dina...) first "on a dark night", with a hand scanner find his RFID tag, then inject under his skin another, right along side.... these two will "data"'collide.... and both will be invisible to a genuine future (ebay?) buyer....and now the trick....get anothe glass capsul RFID tag legitematety of course an inject it abour 200mm away from the other two,,,,the new buyer easily finds this one and...and pays you money...now run away quickly

Ian , not sure about stealing chickens ...and also SABorn, I saw mention of fibreglass...not good thing to have near the food chain as are neither glass capsule RFID tags....that crunch you hear as you lay into the hamburger may be great for a law suite (suit?) but bad for you health. Just another part to the picture....thanks Steve...(Beefy...god is that an omen?)

Regards
Ray
I

 

[graynomad]

cost him £30 ish while an 18M2 costs me about £4.50.

Yes but you don't buy an Arduino board for every product you manufacture, you just buy and use the ATmega328 chip in almost the same way you do a Picaxe, the main difference being that the 328 is only about $4 and any code written for it will run probably 50x faster.

obviously I am getting good help and words from your forum members and this to me is like gold.

I think that this forum and the Arduino one are both the best around by far when it comes to helping people with projects.

Has anyone addressed the problem of having all these loops so close to each other yet? That seems to be a show stopper until it's solved.

 

[SAborn]

SABorn, elsewhere you advised a member to go without series resistors for LEDs, hmmm....hmmm...of course in things Programming you will more careful, won't you?

Ray do you understand PWM and duty cycles for power control, there is no problem with not using resistors with leds if the duty cycle is enough and at 38khz it works fine.
Pull your remote apart and see what they have done in the circuit or IR security beams.
Do you think i would neglect a 2c component if i thought it was needed, in my case the IR beams out temperature data 24/7 and has for many months without fail, the data is logged and if the leds fail it would show quickly on the log.
Although i would not drive the leds direct from the picaxe pin in this case, and the use of a drive transistor is recommended.
If i had not tested and used this method i would not have recommended its use to the other person.
It has also been widely recommended to be done this way on another very respected forum from design engineers.

 

[manuka]

Excuse the late Kiwi contribution: I was farm raised so can keenly relate to keeping track of ones stock & their performance. Dairy cows traditionally of course are known on sight by many milkers,& even in large herds this continues. However such female milking cows are in for the long haul (~7 years) so dairy farmers may find it's somewhat easier to adopt an individual touch.

The more short lived male cattle beast is increasingly a "beneficiary" of NZ's hi tech farming these days, as it's fitted with NAIT (National Animal Identification and Tracing) RFID eartags, which become mandatory from July 1st 2012. There's even talk of clipping the ears of male Australian visitors to ensure they don't steal our women. I've NOT yet encountered these NAIT tags, but if their video (scroll down) is anything to go by the individual animal record keeping insights are pretty comprehensive. Ray- suggest you & your 17,000 check them out!

EXTRA:Grammar police corner- the noble Rev. Ed devices we all know & love are officially called (capitals too) PICAXE micros, & are certainly not "pickaxes". Stan.

 

[SAborn]

and also SABorn, I saw mention of fibreglass...not good thing to have near the food chain as are neither glass capsule RFID tags....that crunch you hear as you lay into the hamburger may be great for a law suite (suit?) but bad for you health. Just another part to the picture...

That might be correct, but dont they make fiberglass troughs and fiberglass feed bins for live stock etc.
What about the glass tags used for animals and food applications.

 

[JoeFromOzarks]

There's even talk of clipping the ears of male Australian visitors to ensure they don't steal our women. Stan.

(I laughed until I cried!!! Then laughed some more!!! You're killing me!!!!)

joe

 

[Ray Seidel]

Hello JoefromOzarks(Joe)... greynomad(Rob)...manuka(Stan) thanks for visiting...

We are just back from the beach, sun, surf, warm sand and strange things on the horizon....I strained hard and on the distant horizon I thought I saw the "cardboard replica of dartmoor prison" chugging by.... through a dark turgid sea, in the way off distance....there were voices., Spike and Neddy and father time.... haste was its name.

As it drew closer, it morphed into an aircraft carrier with screaming zeros on it deck, straining on the ropes,almost ready to launch...Hawaii was the primary target but now I'm thinking Wellington NewZealand may be a better target...... a land rich in sheep and manuka honey and lovely women....say six!

When I think of things electronic, it is not Bulgaria that springs first to my mind...surprise...surprise and now, row after row of Arduino's, mature and ripe for thepicking from a land called endless bounty....hmm...hmmm.

SABorne, you see PWM and "I got away with it did'nt I?"...I see certainity...I see O-Rings on a space ship that broke...I see experts leading you astray...I see corners being cut.
Send me the names of these "very respected design engineers"...come, let's together throw stones on their wicked roofs....it is not..I repeat not...widely recommended to do what you say they claim....

If you were tethered by that infra-red beam to your space suit as you approached Mars and the 10 cent diode "blew".... what comfort to you to say "bugger-me I was wrong"....

If you are going to design something that others rely on for their livelyhood...feedlots in the middle of "nowhere", farmers far beyond the end of the NZ railway, a man in Goole with his broth of pet cow soup (after this I will fire up Google Earth)...all these and endless others want certainity, certainity that all that could be done has been done to make the thing you gave them keeps working long after you have run away with their money.

If I replaced the hydrolics brake line in your motor car with hotmelt glued drinking straws...would I still be on your christmas card list next year.....no....constant current drive is the way to manage LEDS...bit more cost but a lot more certainity.....can you see why I want you to change you brash ways...this is just one part of the whole I see for these 17000 cows and it's name is reliability...it has a close friend called managed redunancy....sorry all., tryng hard to maintain the PICKAXE focus....

There , I did it manuka...like Peter Sellers in doctor StrangeLove.....my furer...I can walk!!!!

So, graynomad....dark horse you....you see the mutual coupling as the show stopper...and you would be right...now tell me how you would rectify the situation....and lead us back to the land of LCR....

SDR, Shields and PMT and GSM and LDR and....and....and...whatever, they are all just too, too convenienet, masks behind which ideas lurk...sorry guys the bright sun, and soft beach has effected me...with any luck this will change.

Regards to all
Ray

 

[manuka]

Ray: Very colourful spiel there mate- you should give up your day job & take to wordsmithing. Best you first clarify if it was 6 sheep or 6 women you were hankering after! If it's the former then we'll be happy to send them, as it'll help raise the average IQ of our respective countries.

I've very lucid Goon Show memories & recall diverse cardboard cutout mentions, but not one of Dartmoor afloat. Please again note that it's PICAXE -there is no "K".

On a more serious note perhaps you should quantify the sort of budget & time frame envisaged for "smart tagging" your 17,000 bovine mates. At their typical $$$ per head value, such an on the hoof mob is worth tens of millions - or if you're an EEC subsidised European maybe an order of magnitude more. An improvement in their well being of just a few % may translate hence into serious money. Mate- that's more than a days wages where I come from.

It's all very well asking for free Forum help & ideas, but for the likes of a presumed six $figure+ commercial project perhaps a more focused & professional RFP (Request For Proposal) may be in order.

Stan.

 

[graynomad]

mutual coupling as the show stopper...and you would be right...now tell me how you would rectify the situation

I know naff-all about RFID so all I can think of is to mechanically separate the cows by placing partitions such that only one cow can eat from a position at a time. Presumably these partitions could be earthed or whatever is required to isolate the bays from each other.

I appreciate though that this would be a huge expense if not already in place.

This problem has to be solved though before you worry about RS485 speeds or available RAM or uploading at midnight. All that is just a matter of designing some protocols and using the right chips.

 

[Dippy]

This will go on 'til the cows come home. HA!

It's been quite entertaining but very exhausting.
The VC between Ray and Paix is amusing but far too tiring for most people to read.

I'm sure if you removed the waffle and digs that more people would read it...
Maybe some of them knew the solution but have died of Tedium Exhaustium Fatalum in the attempt of reading random 50+ line posts

If you want help with a commercial product then best get to the nub of all the aspects.
Have you actually got any vaguely working solution to any aspect of this?

I shall stand back and watch as I know nothing about electronics.


PS. Gray, the main aspects can be Googled which should have been the first task here. Then we could have discussed things from a similar starting point.
Anyway, good luck. I'm off to China.

 

[Ray Seidel]

Hello Dippy....

You too are right in what you say...this is a hobby forum and not the place to accept "free" commercial help...I have stepped over the limon ... I went too far.

I have revealed too much....the holy dollar is again being raised ...bells are ringing..saying it's time to leave...yes I do have more than a Vague idea of working solutions...I was always prepared to share them.

I barely know anything about forum management and I find it beyond weird that you profess you as moderator know "nothing" about electronics...still you are there and I am here.
there is no such thing as a similar starting point anywhere, I had to find the scope of how far I could range with you all.

"Lama Sabachthani"

You off to China, I'm off to bed. and luck has nothing to do with it.

Regards
Ray

 

[Dippy]

"...there is no such thing as a similar starting point anywhere"
- of course there is.
You supply info, data, primers to set the scene.
The "similar starting point" here was a pile of cattle and some thing called RFID.

You must surely of heard of that ghastly phrase "singing from the same hymn-sheet"?

You and Paix obviousy enjoy this verbosity but, to give others a chance to help , you would benefit from a process of Meander Reduction and a litle bit of keeping-to-the-point.

Once the thread is solved or dead then wahhaay - go into Red Herring Overdrive

Anyway, it's an interesting project, so I wish you the very best luck with it.

 

[beefysteve]

Ray, if you know a tame Academic, then see if you can get a copy of this research paper from the University of Newcastle.
I don't know if the research has been publicly funded or not, but (at least) some results have been published. Maybe enough to salve the creative juices?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-07/nu-ccf072511.php

Steve

 

[JoeFromOzarks]

Hello JoefromOzarks(Joe)... greynomad(Rob)...manuka(Stan) thanks for visiting...

I’m not sure I’m truly a part of this discussion. When I was growing up, all fifty-some cattle on my Grandma’s farm wore bells and we could tell one cow or bull from another just by listening, even tell where on the farm where they were walking and their direction.

The only other thing I know about cattle is that as a boy, I took a whoopin’ for herding ‘em back towards the barns with a tractor. “RAWHIDE!!!!! YEE HAW!!!!” I think I was about ten years old at the time.

Seventeen thousand cows all wearing a different sounding bell would tend to drive a rancher (and his neighbors) nuts. And deaf.

joe

 

[manuka]

Ray: Dippy's dry sense of humour means his "knowing nothing about electronics" comment is akin to saying Tiger Woods knows nothing about golf, or the Monty Python team is not humorous.

Dippy: If your "off to China" remark is to be taken literally,then the best of British to you sir! You'll no doubt return technically near gobsmacked,especially if the likes of Shenzhen's electronics powerhouse is on your menu. Stan.

 

[Dippy]

That's exactly where I'm going Stan, though in a couple of weeks time actually.

Yes, I am already gobsmacked by what they've been up to.
And the reason I'm going is to smack a few gobs.
I'll say no more, but it ain't as rosy as you think.

 

[manuka]

Oh dear-trust no one there has rustled up illegal PICAXEs. Mmm- "CHOPAXE" ? At Rev. Ed's bargain rates however it'd be hard for even the Chinese to make any money from fakes. Best they stick to fake Apple stores.

FWIW the Shenzhen S.E.Z. (Special Economic Zone) is a booming mega city now about the size of London,yet 'twas only a mere fishing village 35 years back. I've several Shenzhen contacts in fact who may be delighted to show a gent of your calibre around their empire. As a teaser check this smart phone factory & chortle over the testing footage!

Note-don't worry about needing a translator, as almost all young (East Coast) Chinese have great conversational English,although your Blighty accent may take some reverse translating. Best leave any contemporary Estuary English at home...

Both Latin character style "Pinyin" & English signage abound-with the later often of course hilarious. While plodding around looking for fakes,recognising the Pinyin for compass points helps,as long roads are often split into sections. Hence "Chopaxe Xi Lu" is West Chopaxe Road. (Xi= West, Bei= North, Nan=South, Dong=East, Zhong=Middle & Lu=Road.).

Thirsty work - Google for beer ! Stan.

 

[Ray Seidel]

Thanks "beefysteve"....that one slipped passed me.....I deserve a hiding for not finding it....where's my flail now?...thank-you again
Regards
Ray

 

[Paix]

PWM is a very popular way of controlling LEDs you will find. How would you go about controlling the brightness of LED luminaires with a constant current driver for instance? It's all about heat; keep the junction temperature down and you will not do any harm. There was a time when LEDs were seen as everlasting indicators that didn't fail like lamps, but then it was noted that emissivity dropped off with age. So, a lifed component perhaps, much better than a lamp but not fully infinite?

You will understand that when not given sufficient detail how wrong conclusions can be arrived at and how irritating/frustrating that can be. Livestock: somehow you arrived at chickens, although I don't know quite why. Stan can maybe have some of his National advertising gurus work a minor miracle on them as they did for Manuka. Not chickens, but bees. A fact freely available to those that look in the right place.

The brains have arrived, but find nothing substantial to feed upon or firm enough to work with for your benefit, yet more than a few words to filter. I have failed signally to nail you down to a firm requirement that can be worked with, except for a form of automated scope creep.

I recognise the fraying at the end of a thread as it dies. I have yet to see a thread that has ever been remotely associated with RS485 do anything else than die an inconclusive death.

It's been interesting, if highly time consuming. Many thanks.

If Jerjen has been reading, then he has long since decided that it didn't fit in with the vision he has for his his project. A link from his thread to this one was left in place, so he has had every opportunity to engage with you Ray. I don't know when he last visited the forum, but I guess that particular avenue is probably a busted flush too.

Regards,
Ian

 

[Ray Seidel]

Ian, let us do this cleanly, please see to it that this thread is removed from this form.

I followed your early advise to have the "moderator" park this discussion in a quit corner.....

I see that your moderator and his fellow "senior" member have been patting down the dirt on my grave as they rudely babble over the top of me about a junket trip to China....

If these are the "brains " that you say have arrived... like avenging angles.... well I seen enough! ...I arrived here too late, perhaps in 1970, when professed ignorance was a badge of honor. After 42 years surly I at liberty to expect better?

Yes Ian it is frustrating when something as simple as using a PWM constant current souce to drive a LED is inconceivable to you....you grasp at a very...very... poor example to flout indignation....I will leave it to others to tidy up you understanding

Ian, the reason for your sycophantic appeal to praise your moderator for having his and his gurus fingers in some honey pot...is something I will not waste time exploring....if he made money from bees good on him...this is a PICAXE forum not an old mates massarge lounge?

Sorry you are perplexed by chickens, it was a simple segway between ideas in an earlier post... that used your...your... (not my) passing reference about incubators....if you incubate things other than chickens, well...well what....
If it was a "seniors" moment for you, well re-read Scroggie quickly, time is running out.

Still you and others have perception, this thread is frayed beyond repair...it seems to me that inertia
will keep you spiralling for a few more years yet and your circle will be happy to the end.

My last words now (and I am sure your moderator is again counting down the number of the lines I am consuming on his fingers and toes)....in fact that would make a good PICAXE program for someone...perhaps the young men will arrive here some day...keep hoping.

SABorne, keep an open mind and do not be seduced by artificial authority...to you and the few others, I say thanks we danced for a while , It could have been better done.

"rhetorical logos"....be persuaded by reason...now let us part, ...please remove this thread, and the link back to Jurjen

Regards
Ray

 

[Paix]

@Ray, The segue between incubators and chickens is not illogical, but is incorrect.
The thread, at my advice and request, was appropriately moved from the “completed projects” to the “active forum”, where you had the best chance of succeeding. The link was left for Jerjen so that you would not feel disadvantaged by the move.

I have no indignation to flout and am disappointed that you feel that way and to be accused of being a sycophancy is unfortunate but not totally unexpected given the at time florid language that you use. Long threads do have their intermissions, yet it is easier to to whip up a storm and blame others than to realise that you failed to come to the point.

What is written in stone remains writ, for that is the way of the Internet, as witnessed by the wayback machine.

It has been interesting and I wish you and your project well. You may feel that you have wasted time here, but take it from me, that to engage with your software house in such blue-sky thinking under the guise of a firm proposal would cost your budget dearly. You can't claim that you were able to explore a few ideas and no one popped up to tell you that this wasn't an RFID forum and wholly inappropriate. Go with good grace. Ill words and pseudo tantrums are not fitting salutation.

If you have a PICAXE problem you know where to come. Meanwhile have fun with the Arduino too. Welcome to the digital codeface.

Ian

 

[SAborn]

I think you will find the thread will remain, as i have never noticed a thread to be removed without due cause.

Its a pity you have taken your bat and ball and left, all because everyone's crystal balls were on the blink again.

If you had kept your waffle shorter, and had given some tools to work with, than you may well have gotten much more help.
On review other than a verbal brief, some glossy photos and a mock up of cardboard and sticky tape we had little to work with, although the BS flowed well.

It is not a wise move to take shots at the moderators, these guys do a hell of a job and filter through a lot of posts, with spending a lot of time helping people who ask questions and provide details of their projects, all free of charge and for no personal gain of their own.
Many forums you would have been banned for making this thread not much more than a personal blog, so the fact the moderators let it run, was cutting you some slack.

I wish you well with your project endeavor.

 

[Dippy]

Whilst I'm not an "avenging angle" I can be obtuse

Yes, there were two or three light-hearted red herrings; it happens.
If the wheat had been removed from the chaff then many more people would have read it all and chipped in.
... maybe even some people with RFID experience. And they do exist on this Forum ....
The principle is blooming easy.
Hertz's birthday and Audio Loops should give a good hint after all. The rest is simple digits.
I too wish you luck with the project and hope you find people on your intellectual wavelength (a minor pun).