Sorter for the win! (almost!)

Came in this morning to check on Mike's newly-assembled sorter from yesterday night. Turned out beautifully :) won't need to go back on the LaserCAMM today!

Orion did a lot of tape sensor calculations yesterday, looks like ambient light doesn't affect the readings much. This afternoon Mike attached the stepper motor onto the sorter, set up the circuitry for the tape sensor (sourcing configuration), and rigged up some test code. And it works!! Getting consistent values of

~20 for black ball
~900 for yellow ball
~0 for no ball!

Still need to test with ambient beacon noise, hopefully this won't be a problem.

The sorter turns ~60 deg left or right (about 66 or 67 steps, this motor has 200 steps in all) after it senses each ball.



But one glitch: it sometimes underturns. :( What's up? Is it skipping pulses? Also, our driver may have been busted. We'll troubleshoot tomorrow.