P short's servo mp3 board

**toozie21** · 05-02-2019, 04:37 PM

Phil, I am hoping you see this.

I was doing some research on how to playback servo motions tied to music when I came across one of your threads from a few years back on hauntforum. It looked like you were doing something similar, but I didn't get the impression that you ever were able to wrap it up.

Do you have any further info on it? It sounds just like what I want to do.

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**P. Short** · 08-13-2019, 08:39 AM

You're right, I never wrapped it up. The central idea was to use one MP3 channel for music/audio, and one channel to hold encode position data for multiple servos. A program similar to vixen (or perhaps vixen itself) would be used to 'program' the servo data. This was some time ago, but I think that someone had written a plugin for Vixen2 that would be helpful for this task.

**dirknerkle** · 08-13-2019, 08:41 AM

Jason, contact Brian Lincoln (Lightman). Brian created a servo motion recorder/player using a Propeller experimenter's board that was absolutely fantastic for this kind of thing.

https://www.diychristmas.org/wiki/im...ructions11.pdf

**P. Short** · 08-13-2019, 09:02 AM

I'l second what Dirk wrote, I'm unlikely to pick that up again and, as they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Now that I've reviewed the last page of the hauntforum thread, I realize that I had two projects intermixed in that thread. The second project didn't use the Tenda board nor an SD card, rather it was a small integrated board. I don't have any of the development designs on this computer, but I seem to recall that it was entirely an SMT project, and I would have had to find someone to manufacture the board for any copies beyond what I put together for testing/personal use.

**toozie21** · 08-13-2019, 09:05 PM

Hey Phil,

So, in the meantime, I went the Arduino route and it seems to be working fine. My audio clips are 30s or less, so I don't have too much compounding drift in timing from beginning to end (like if I was slightly off on a 30 min video).

I play the audio and record my ADC values on 100ms intervals. Then when I play it back, I kick off the audio again and read back the values at the same interval. I am sure that over a longer time the difference in read/write delays would become very noticable, but at 30s it is fine (plus the servo movements have enough slop in them that you can only be so precise anyways).

So thanks for an update, it is good to at least hear where things went on it. Hopefully I'll post something when I get this project wrapped up.

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**toozie21** · 08-13-2019, 09:07 PM

Originally Posted by dirknerkle

Jason, contact Brian Lincoln (Lightman). Brian created a servo motion recorder/player using a Propeller experimenter's board that was absolutely fantastic for this kind of thing.

https://www.diychristmas.org/wiki/im...ructions11.pdf

You know, I did a lot of reading on it and working through the source code when I was first starting this. I think it is a good project, but I am not a Propeller guy (I don't think they even make them anymore), and I decided I was going to over complicate things if I tried to Port it to straight C for a Pi or run it on an Arduino. That was when I decided to go my current route. But it is a worthwhile project to read up on and follow.

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**dirknerkle** · 08-13-2019, 10:27 PM

Another idea, Jason....

Chris Maloney (ctmal) wrote a visual plugin for Vixen 2 that has the ability to record servo movements into a sequence in live time. Coupled with his RenServo firmware for the PIC 16F688 (and 16F1825), it can replay things exactly as they were made because the servo values are written into the cells in the recording process. You can control eyes, head, and arms or other appendages with some creative thinking. It's quite slick....

It works by mapping various channels to the servo functions, and then you play the sequence while you record the movements. You use your mouse or up/down/left/right arrow keys (as I recall...) to effect the movements of the on-screen model and the plugin writes the values into the channel cells.

**toozie21** · 08-13-2019, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by dirknerkle

Another idea, Jason....

Chris Maloney (ctmal) wrote a visual plugin for Vixen 2 that has the ability to record servo movements into a sequence in live time. Coupled with his RenServo firmware for the PIC 16F688 (and 16F1825), it can replay things exactly as they were made because the servo values are written into the cells in the recording process. You can control eyes, head, and arms or other appendages with some creative thinking. It's quite slick....

It works by mapping various channels to the servo functions, and then you play the sequence while you record the movements. You use your mouse or up/down/left/right arrow keys (as I recall...) to effect the movements of the on-screen model and the plugin writes the values into the channel cells.

Hmmm, sounds cool, I am just not following completely I think.

Do you have a link to where I should start reading up on this? It might be worth it in case it makes something easier in the long run.

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**P. Short** · 08-13-2019, 10:41 PM

http://doityourselfchristmas.com/for...-Output-plugin

There may be other threads by ctmal in the Vixen2 plugins section either before or after this one in time.