Volt() timing weirdness while potty training Carl

GoPiGo
1

I have been working on “potty training” Carl. He needs to recognize when he is:
a) Charging - don’t get off the pot
b) Trickle Charging but not thirsty yet - Can get off the pot when desired
c) Trickle Charging and down to his “need juice” limit - time to get off briefly, then get back on
d) Discharging but not thirsty yet - play hard
e) Discharging and down to his “need juice” limit - time to get back on the pot

So the weird thing if I measure battery, measure distance, measure battery, the second battery reading will be 20-70 mv (0.020v - 0.070v) less than the first reading.

If I put a sleep(1) before the second battery reading, the second reading will always be 0-60mv greater than the first reading.

Not that 0.07 volt variability is that big a deal in 8-12v, but the plus/minus consistency with and without sleep seems weird.

2

I don’t think that line of code can have such a big impact on the battery voltage. Like I don’t think an instruction can trigger such a substantial draw of current that the voltage drops by 0.07v. That’s interesting …

3

Granted, but something weird is going on. Perhaps the A2D needs recovery time after reading battery voltage the first time, and perhaps even more recovery time after taking a DI Distance sensor reading. (but Distance Sensor doesn’t use A2D so I have no clue what is going on)

This is with sleep(0.001) after the ds.read_mm() before the second volt() call:

pi@Carl : ~/Carl/systests/volt $ ./volt_test.py
loop:100
RESULTS
Sleep after ds.read_mm() before 2nd reading:0.001 Sleep at end of loop:1
First Readings - mean:9.475 max:9.500 min:9.440 std:0.011
Second Readings - mean:9.408 max:9.466 min:9.354 std:0.023
Difference - mean:0.067 max:0.120 min:-0.009 std:0.024
time 1st to 2nd - mean:0.176 max:0.354 min:0.113 std:0.040
time 2nd to 1st - mean:1.002 max:1.002 min:1.002 std:0.000
times1stGreater: 99
times2ndGreater: 1

pi@Carl : ~/Carl/systests/volt $ ./volt_test.py
loop:100
RESULTS
Sleep after ds.read_mm() before 2nd reading:0.001 Sleep at end of loop:1
First Readings - mean:9.465 max:9.491 min:9.389 std:0.014
Second Readings - mean:9.401 max:9.466 min:9.320 std:0.025
Difference - mean:0.064 max:0.120 min:-0.017 std:0.028
time 1st to 2nd - mean:0.166 max:0.318 min:0.119 std:0.035
time 2nd to 1st - mean:1.002 max:1.002 min:1.002 std:0.000
times1stGreater: 96
times2ndGreater: 2

==== With sleep(1) after read_mm(), before second volt() call =================
pi@Carl : ~/Carl/systests/volt $ ./volt_test.py
loop:100
RESULTS
Sleep after ds.read_mm() before 2nd reading:1 Sleep at end of loop:1
First Readings - mean:9.431 max:9.457 min:9.371 std:0.013
Second Readings - mean:9.429 max:9.457 min:9.363 std:0.016
Difference - mean:0.002 max:0.068 min:-0.060 std:0.020
time 1st to 2nd - mean:1.171 max:1.319 min:1.120 std:0.042
time 2nd to 1st - mean:1.002 max:1.002 min:1.002 std:0.000
times1stGreater: 46
times2ndGreater: 34

pi@Carl : ~/Carl/systests/volt $ ./volt_test.py
loop:100
RESULTS
Sleep after ds.read_mm() before 2nd reading:1 Sleep at end of loop:1
First Readings - mean:9.410 max:9.431 min:9.346 std:0.014
Second Readings - mean:9.411 max:9.440 min:9.303 std:0.017
Difference - mean:-0.001 max:0.111 min:-0.068 std:0.023
time 1st to 2nd - mean:1.160 max:1.317 min:1.111 std:0.029
time 2nd to 1st - mean:1.002 max:1.002 min:1.001 std:0.000
times1stGreater: 42
times2ndGreater: 46

===== No dist reading, only sleep(0.001) between first and second volt() calls =====
loop:100
RESULTS
No readDist: Sleep before 2nd reading:0.001 Sleep at end of loop:1
First Readings - mean:9.373 max:9.397 min:9.329 std:0.014
Second Readings - mean:9.367 max:9.397 min:9.311 std:0.017
Difference - mean:0.007 max:0.043 min:-0.009 std:0.012
time 1st to 2nd - mean:0.002 max:0.002 min:0.002 std:0.000
time 2nd to 1st - mean:1.002 max:1.002 min:1.002 std:0.000
times1stGreater: 31
times2ndGreater: 2

loop:100
RESULTS
No readDist: Sleep before 2nd reading:0.001 Sleep at end of loop:1
First Readings - mean:9.366 max:9.389 min:9.337 std:0.010
Second Readings - mean:9.361 max:9.389 min:9.311 std:0.013
Difference - mean:0.005 max:0.060 min:0.000 std:0.011
time 1st to 2nd - mean:0.002 max:0.002 min:0.001 std:0.000
time 2nd to 1st - mean:1.002 max:1.003 min:1.002 std:0.000
times1stGreater: 17
times2ndGreater: 0
pi@Carl:~/Carl/systests/volt $ nano volt_test.py

This is again no distance sensor read, but with the ave time a reading would take 0.166s

loop:100
RESULTS
No readDist: Sleep before 2nd reading:0.166 Sleep at end of loop:1
First Readings - mean:9.357 max:9.380 min:9.329 std:0.011
Second Readings - mean:9.357 max:9.380 min:9.311 std:0.012
Difference - mean:-0.000 max:0.035 min:-0.026 std:0.016
time 1st to 2nd - mean:0.167 max:0.167 min:0.167 std:0.000
time 2nd to 1st - mean:1.002 max:1.002 min:1.001 std:0.000
times1stGreater: 43
times2ndGreater: 40

pi@Carl:~/Carl/systests/volt $ ./volt_test.py
loop:100
RESULTS
No readDist: Sleep before 2nd reading:0.166 Sleep at end of loop:1
First Readings - mean:9.347 max:9.371 min:9.311 std:0.011
Second Readings - mean:9.347 max:9.363 min:9.320 std:0.011
Difference - mean:-0.000 max:0.026 min:-0.034 std:0.016
time 1st to 2nd - mean:0.167 max:0.167 min:0.167 std:0.000
time 2nd to 1st - mean:1.002 max:1.002 min:1.002 std:0.000
times1stGreater: 39
times2ndGreater: 41

Here is my test_volt.py - (To use: comment out lines that use my plib imports)