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View Full Version : pic: Good use of a old cRio

chmconkling
17-01-2015, 21:26
[cdm-description=photo]41160[/cdm-description]
BitTwiddler
17-01-2015, 21:28
Kind of a sad ending to an old workhorse. They were cranky but they could really take a beating.
Dief Chelphi
17-01-2015, 21:38
It's not like they are expensive or anything.
:deadhorse:
nighterfighter
17-01-2015, 21:46
Maybe you can use it to cook corndogs, and have it catch the crumbs!
yash101
17-01-2015, 22:24
A bit more of a serious reply:
Our team has one (working) cRIO left on our last year's robot for demonstrations. It's nice to have the old cRIOs available, but it is also a total bummer that there is no support for them anymore. There isn't a driver station for it. There aren't programming tools with the right plugins either.
In short, they are quite useless. The dropdown on the DS which presumable allows you to change driver station versions(?) doesn't seem to co-op with the old cRIO either.

If NI and WPI didn't drop support for the old cRIO entirely, it may be of some good use, especially while prototyping. I doubt every team has five RoboRIO's to run those small prototypes. In our team, only the programming team has access to our RoboRIO's because they are under continuous use. After all, the new RoboRIO is quite pricey.
Christopher149
17-01-2015, 22:44
A bit more of a serious reply:
Our team has one (working) cRIO left on our last year's robot for demonstrations. It's nice to have the old cRIOs available, but it is also a total bummer that there is no support for them anymore. There isn't a driver station for it. There aren't programming tools with the right plugins either.
In short, they are quite useless. The dropdown on the DS which presumable allows you to change driver station versions(?) doesn't seem to co-op with the old cRIO either.

If NI and WPI didn't drop support for the old cRIO entirely, it may be of some good use, especially while prototyping. I doubt every team has five RoboRIO's to run those small prototypes. In our team, only the programming team has access to our RoboRIO's because they are under continuous use. After all, the new RoboRIO is quite pricey.

Since we have two decent Classmates, I think we'll keep the older one "pure" for running our two cRIO bots. (The third cRIO we own might me more useful with the OP's use case; the useful ethernet port is damaged)
Gweiss96
17-01-2015, 22:45
We use our old cRios to operate our practice bots.
tStano
17-01-2015, 23:41
We dug up some laptops had been gathering dust (we got in 2010 ish once they were too old for a sponsor) and put the 2014 driver station on them. They run XP, so the new driver station won't work.

This is a good end for old XP laptops that aren't worth updating. I'm sure someone you know has one of those lying around. It was by far the easiest installation process of the year. The laptop battery's a little finnicky, but it really does great.

Its sad that this is the only way to make 6 years of robot work. I really hope NI/WPI releases a better solution in the future, but until then, I still get to use the only OS that doesn't give me problems, which I really quite enjoy.
yash101
18-01-2015, 01:34
Since we have two decent Classmates, I think we'll keep the older one "pure" for running our two cRIO bots. (The third cRIO we own might me more useful with the OP's use case; the useful ethernet port is damaged)


That's exactly what we did. Our Classmate has a shot battery and isn't really fast enough to be desirable to code on, we decided to just keep it for driving the old robots. Once the old cRIO dies, we might as well get the new driver station
mrnoble
18-01-2015, 02:11
Those are some sweet looking mecanums there, I must say. Care to share anything about where those wheels came from?
wasayanwer97
18-01-2015, 03:41
Those are some sweet looking mecanums there, I must say. Care to share anything about where those wheels came from?
They look like the AM Mecanum HD.

http://www.andymark.com/8in-Mecanum-HD-Right-p/am-2115.htm
mrnoble
18-01-2015, 05:34
Yup. The lighting made me think the rollers were gum-rubber colored.
chmconkling
18-01-2015, 05:47
Yup. The lighting made me think the rollers were gum-rubber colored.

That would be them
chmconkling
18-01-2015, 05:49
Btw everyone. That cRio has been touchy on working the last few season, so she is no good.
Alan Anderson
18-01-2015, 16:20
It's nice to have the old cRIOs available, but it is also a total bummer that there is no support for them anymore. There isn't a driver station for it. There aren't programming tools with the right plugins either.
In short, they are quite useless...If NI and WPI didn't drop support for the old cRIO entirely, it may be of some good use, especially while prototyping.

Last year's NI LabVIEW for FRC still creates programs; it does not expire. The driver station still works. We're using one of the 8-slot cRIOs for a mecanum testbed.

The 4-slot cRIOs are currently supported with this year's LabVIEW.
ratdude747
19-01-2015, 09:04
When those came out jaws were dropping... you laugh at them now... but back then they were revolutionary compared to the old IFI controllers of yesteryear.
calvinpanho
19-01-2015, 10:24
Last year's NI LabVIEW for FRC still creates programs; it does not expire. The driver station still works. We're using one of the 8-slot cRIOs for a mecanum testbed.

The 4-slot cRIOs are currently supported with this year's LabVIEW.

the Windriver(C++) license it's almost over, do you know if the new software (eclipse) is capable of programming cRio?
tStano
19-01-2015, 13:42
the Windriver(C++) license it's almost over, do you know if the new software (eclipse) is capable of programming cRio?

I do not know, i doubt it though.

I do know that the old java tools still work just fine, but netbeans is free software, so that kind of explains Java.
chmconkling
19-01-2015, 14:03
the Windriver(C++) license it's almost over, do you know if the new software (eclipse) is capable of programming cRio?

Yes and WPI and FIRST Technical Resources says to install eclipse
calvinpanho
19-01-2015, 14:31
Yes and WPI and FIRST Technical Resources says to install eclipse

Thanks! But, how about the driver station, its possible to use with the new one? or i need to use an old version?
Joe Ross
19-01-2015, 14:42
Yes and WPI and FIRST Technical Resources says to install eclipse

Can you provide the link to the instructions for using eclipse for programming C++ for the cRIO?
rockychat3
19-01-2015, 20:22
We have been holding off on buying a second RoboRIO, but I had a few questions on ways we could save money. For context, we have two old 4-slot cRIOs no longer on working robots and we use Java. All of the students have only 2015 tools (Labview update and Eclipse) installed, but I have held back on upgrading software in case I am the only one who can still connect to a cRIO.

(1) Is it possible to have two versions of drivers station on the same PC?

(2) Is it possible to program the cRIO from Netbeans with the old plugins and the RoboRIO from Eclipse with the new plugins on the same PC?

(3) If we did buy a new RoboRIO, could we use a standard 20AMP slot on the old PDP to power it, saving us $200 on a new PDP (for internal/prototyping, not for competition)?

As a low to mid-budget team, I don't want to throw around that kind of money if we can get nearly the same benefit for less. Thanks

-andy / 4859
orangemoore
19-01-2015, 20:28
This is actually not true.
I don't have acess to a 4-slot crio but the current 2015 driver station should work with 4-slot cRIOs.

For the 2015 driver station to work, go to the 3rd tab on the left (the gear), and change the FMS protocol from '15 to 09' to '14

You should then be able to connect to the 4 slot cRIO.

I hope this helps.
Ben Wolsieffer
19-01-2015, 20:36
I don't have acess to a 4-slot crio but the current 2015 driver station should work with 4-slot cRIOs.

For the 2015 driver station to work, go to the 3rd tab on the left (the gear), and change the FMS protocol from '15 to 09' to '14

You should then be able to connect to the 4 slot cRIO.

I hope this helps.

Despite that misleading switch, you are actually unable to use the new DS with the to control cRIOs running old code. See this thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132261) for more information.

I believe it is possible to install this year's labview code on to the cRIO and allow it to use the 2015 protocol, but this doesn't work for other languages.
orangemoore
19-01-2015, 20:38
Despite that misleading switch, you are actually unable to use the new DS with the to control cRIOs running old code. See this thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132261) for more information.

I believe it is possible to install this year's labview code on to the cRIO and allow it to use the 2015 protocol, but this doesn't work for other languages.

I thought I saw something that said this.

We only have 8-slot cRIOs so we have to use the old driver station anyways.
tStano
19-01-2015, 21:33
(1) Is it possible to have two versions of drivers station on the same PC?

http://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/4485/m/13503/l/144150-installing-the-frc-2015-update-suite-all-languages
This update includes the driver station. Seeing as the first step is "uninstall old versions", I seriously doubt you can have both driver stations on the same PC, but perhaps it would be okay if you had them on different profiles. I have not tried this. I recommend getting a super cheap XP laptop someone probably has lying around for a cRIO driver station.


(2) Is it possible to program the cRIO from Netbeans with the old plugins and the RoboRIO from Eclipse with the new plugins on the same PC?

This does indeed work. I've done it. You might spend a fair amount of time screwing with network settings, but if you're using a roboRIO, you probably will anyway.


(3) If we did buy a new RoboRIO, could we use a standard 20AMP slot on the old PDP to power it, saving us $200 on a new PDP (for internal/prototyping, not for competition)?

I have not tried this, but my gut feeling is that you'll run into some troubles because the old PDP isn't CAN enabled and the new one is, as is the roboRIO. The roboRIO might get confused without the PDP on CAN, plus you couldn't do any current monitoring.
ozrien
19-01-2015, 22:51
The new roboRIO will function without the CAN feature of the PDP. It just won't have current-sense features. You will still be able to deploy code, debug, move motors, etc....

The roboRIO doesn't need the PDP CAN to function, it just needs battery voltage to power. To your point it wouldn't be legal but the question was for internal/prototyping, so you should be fine.