Neuros Technology Forums

Using a pre-made DC/DC converter form Farnell, RS etc is probably your best solution for both the 5V & 12V supplies. The 12V version will do an excelent job of cleaning up the supply and a 10W version will probably drive all your accessories. They are also very efficient and can be mounted in a small enclosure without any overheating problems.

The only problem is that they are not cheap but you do get what you pay for. I think that a UK50-60 investment is worth the money if it protects the connected equipment. 

Something else worth considering is a plug in power supply for use on Mini ITX motherboards. There are a few types on the market and have been produced for converting 12V external brick psu's into the various voltages needed for the motherboard. They can supply +12V, +5V & +3.3V at up to 200W total so that should keep most people happy !.

Naturally a bit of work is required to hook up to something other than a motherboard but the ITX style connector is available from other suppliers and a couple of flying leads are already provided. Just remember that these units are "enabled" by the power button on a pc. You will need to replicate this link on the connector using an external switch to make it work.

In the UK you can get these from :

http://www.icp-epia.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=15

They should not be hard to find for other countries.

Quite by chance I recieved an email ths morning re:

http://www.1394imaging.com/en/products/converters/dfgusb2lt/overview/

Cheers

Apologies if you have already seen this device:

http://www.seattlerobotics.com/cmucam.htm

Camera can output raw frames via serial port @115kBd and seems to be quite adept at many other vision related functions. At least this would provde a possible front end to your system with just the other half to worry about...

Price is around $100 - seems to be too good to be true !.

Cheers

A couple of months ago I purchased a Logic3 battery pack designed for use on a PSP or similar. I do not have a PSP so have only just tried charging it for testing the R2. I noticed that there are many comments on the net regarding this unit - mostly negative.

The battery took about 6 hours to charge from flat using a 5.5V bench power supply. A bi-color led indicates when charging has finished and when switched to battery mode. All was ok until I measured the output voltage. Without a load it was 4.24V. I did not connect it to the R2 as this is too low for reliable operation and Ex-Navy has already established that below 4V can cause problems writing to the storage card.

The Logic3 is only one of many external PSP units on the market so my advice would be to look elsewhere. However it would be useful if people could post details of devices that actually work and if possible measure the output voltage on a fully charged pack. An indication of running time would be great.

This information will be invaluable and could prevent damage to the R2.

Good luck with your quest !.

For info:
I have been researching a project that will use Labview Vision and two cameras to track a moving object in two planes (x,y). The NI website is loaded with information and has a good demonstration of the capabilities of Vision. This involves a rotating platform loaded with spark plugs. The system uses pattern matching to detect and measure various parameters such as spark gap etc.

As the spark plug passes the first camera it is energised and a spark is created. A second camera is synchronised to capture an image of this spark and both outputs are displayed on a screen. Measurement data is logged at the same speed. The really impressive bit is when the rotation speed is increased and the system still works.

This in itself is not really of much interest to your project but it does illustrate the almost total lack of latency(I think) in the system. The cameras are connected via 1394 which is becoming a very popular standard in the machine vision industry.

USB2 & 1394A are similar in spec so I wonder if the latency you have seen is a function of the PC software as opposed to the method of connection ?. With 400Mb/s connection speed there may not be a requirement to compress the data within the camera so "all" you have to do is access the 1394 stream and extract the already digitised video.

http://www.1394imaging.com/en/products/

Cheers

I wonder if you could get more functionality from the camera itself. I cannot recommend anything but I do know there are digital devices out there that should allow you to access raw pixel data. If this is the case then there are many microcontrollers that shoud be able to crunch the numbers is almost real time. Sounds like you have sorted the code to detect moving objects so half the battle is won.

Sounds interesting, what is your application?.

If you can tolerate any compression at all then something form Canopus may be of interest.  I have the ADVC100 which I use to convert analogue video into avi files for direct edit in Premiere. Naturally there is some compression via a built in codec but for "video" use,  as opposed to bit manipulation,  this is not noticeable and the data is of very high quality. It can also handle DV streamed from a camcorder which can reach data rates of 36Mb/sec so the processing power is pretty fast. Naturally I would never put this between my DV source and the PC but mentioned it to illustrate that the device should do most of the work for you and reduce the load on your PC.

Incidently the size of each frame will depend on the bit rate. If you do not use the highest setting (currently anout 1Mb/s on the R2) then you have effectively reduced the quality of your data and this may equate to using a "compression" codec in the first place. Not sure how long you want to record for but an 8GB card will last for approx 1.5hours of RAW data capture and the only way to increase this is to lower the bit rate.

Anyway, just my 2p's worth.

Can you explain this  a bit better ?.

"It might have an 8 hour problem, but it should be at least 8-12 hours of continues recording before it has an inherent isssue"

Also, 8GB cards will be common and affordable in the next year or so. The ability to record 8+ hours of highest quality video on the OSD will appeal to many people but this will entail splitting the storage into 2GB chunks. If this process is automatic on the OSD (is it ?) then why can't it be done on the R2 ?.

The composite video signal into the R2 has horizontal sync pulses 63 microseconds apart, there are 525 of these in a single video frame and 50 frames every second. Opening and closing files during data capture is a common proceedure in many applications. The biggest advantage is data security. Should the data stream be interrupted then only data recorded since the last file close/file open routine will be lost.

I appreciate that this is not always necessary or even desireable for a video application but the concept could easily be applied to the R2 by closing/opening say every 30 minutes. I am not sure what the processor capabilities are but I would guess that the whole operation could be done in the time for say 2 or 3 sync pulses to occur. Even waiting for the next vertical sync pulse to arrive would not be a major problem.

This process would be invisible to the user, increase security and simplify video processing by having smaller file sizes. The current delay between start/stop recording is way too long to be a practical way of splitting the video.




 

Thanks for the reply,  I can only assume that everyone else uses compact flash cards.....

I finally purchased a mem stick duo from ebay this week. The difference in depth is small but just sufficient for me to get the R2 into a 110mm plastic pipe. I had to use right angle 3.5mm connectors with the covers removed  but at least my project can proceed.

I will post details later.

I guess using a two port RCA switch box would help with your problem as well, however I agree that there shoud be a pass through function.

If you have the Neuros between the cable box and the TV then you are using composite video as the input source. This is far lower quality than the RGB (?) output from your Cable box.

Assuming you have two outputs on the Cable box (Scart in Europe) then I would connect one directly to the TV and the other to the Neuros and treat it just like a VHS recorder.

This allows you to record & playback through the Cable box and power down the Neuros when not in use.

If there is only 1 connection on the Cable box then buy a cheap Scart or video switch box to bypass the Neuros when not in use.

If you have two scart sockets (or two inputs) on your VCR can you just use one for the R2 and the other to connect to the TV ?. The R2 could then be powered off for the times you are just using the VCR for playback or channel recording. You may have to use the VCR remote to select the source.

Please see my post in this section re suitable regulator.

5V @ 1000A would be sufficient to power your whole house and your neighbours houses as well. The Neuros ac adapter has the capacity to deliver 1500mA (thats milliamps, 1mA= 0.001 Amps).

Just because a supply is capable of delivering a certain current does not mean it needs to. For example my PC supply is capable of  500W but my current hardware only requires 300W. However should I add new hardware then the power consumption will increase but the supply still has the capacity to work correctly.

My solution was based on the actual power consumption of the R2 and it works quite happily 

No problem, having a sticky link is a good option as it guides the enquiry to the right place and a wiki page is probably the perfect way of collating this information. Also removing posts that advertise non Neuros devices would also remove the implication that they are "approved" by Neuros.

I guess that there are not many sticky posts in the R2 & OSD sections so perhaps a link in both would be appropriate.

Cheers





 

The total amount of current that the Neuros ac adapter can provide is 1.5A. The Neuros R2 consumes just under 0.5A when recording to a 1GB card. I have posted the power consumption figures for my unit elsewhere in this section.

Generally a power supply can provide more power than is required for a number of reasons including handling  startup surge and "glitches" without the supply failing or shutting down. Using a 1A regulator is more than adequate for this application with a 1GB card. I also presume that Neuros have standardised on the ac adaptor to simplify matters and keep costs down.

I have just looked at the spec of the  Silicon Power Ultima 45X 4 GB Compact Flash Card which will be available soon. The operating current is 30mA ie 0.030A ie peanuts.

Cheers