Everybody Standby!!!

[IronSlayTallica]

We seem to have a problem. Our robot is on. The tethers are connected. The radios are connected. The RC and the OI are connected to everything they need to be connected to. And yet, "*BLINK BLINK* No Data/Radio." AND! The program IS loaded into the RC. The RC is happy. It has green lights. It's ready to go. But the OI blinks uncontrollably. It just doesn't seem happy. We've been working on this for two days now. Our main programmer can't seem to find the problem and he's an UberNerd. Help? :ahh: :confused: :eek:

[Cory]

This may sound really stupid, but have you checked all the obvious stuff, like setting your team # (Does this have any effect outside of the competition?) making sure that you have the AC adapter for the OI, double checking that everything is in the right place, etc?

[IronSlayTallica]

No, you don't sound stupid. I won't go and tell you how incredibly stupid my friend and I are for now... but yes, team number was up, ac adapter plugged in, etc. It's an unhappy OI.

[IMDWalrus]

No, you don't sound stupid. I won't go and tell you how incredibly stupid my friend and I are for now... but yes, team number was up, ac adapter plugged in, etc. It's an unhappy OI.
This is my first year actually working on our robot, so I have almost no experience with this. Still, two suggestions:

1.) Check the manual. Make sure that everything is connected correctly.

2.) Try running the robot without the tether. It's possible that the cable itself is bad.

3.) If you can get your hands on another OI (maybe borrow one from another team), try that out instead of yours. The OI could be the problem, but I'm not sure how likely that would be.

4.) If you're really stumped, contact another team in your area. With any luck they'll be able to help you out.

[Jedi Padawan]

At risk of sounding incredibly stupid... Have you checked your "backup battery" that plugs into the controller and your connections to sensors and motor controllers??

[Bruce C.]

Checking the obvious, again, but it sounds like you have BOTH the tether and the radios connected? Did you follow the procedure in the start up guide to use the tether first, without the radios, to download the team number into the RC, and get it working, THEN disconnect the tether and try the radios?

[M. Hicken]

have you tried using the default code? we had that problem using last years controller. But im not the programmer, i might sound like an idiot to the rest of the free world. So, with that out of the way, is this your code or the default, try running the default code to test if it is your code or the hardware...

hope that made sence, it did to me, but hey, im weird

[rwaliany]

Just to clarify some stuff. You do NOT need the 7.2 battery to set the team number etc... I used the default breakers and hooked it up to the 12 V battery.

Steps...
1. Turn on OI
2. Set team number
3. Turn on RC
4. Hold program down
5. Program (doesn't seem to reset on first program)
6. Reset
7. Hook up tether from RC to OI, it should auto-calibrate team.
8. You're done.

Thanks,
Ryan Waliany

[IronSlayTallica]

Well, thank you for all your help. I'm not the head programmer of the team, but as I said, he was having trouble with it too. I'll be sure to try your suggestions on Monday. Sadly enough, my team doesn't have Sunday meetings which is terrible considering that we've already had snow days that interfered with building days.

Thanks Again! :)

[pras870]

I'm not sure, but I think our programmers tried that the other night. I remember we had this problem last year at the UTC regional, and it wound up that we had a bad OI unit. I believe the person that was in charge of the event came over and talked to use for about an hour or so and gave us a new unit, which solved the problem. It was the same situation as we are having this year. The OI worked while we were testing then just went dead. The interface was working on Thursday I believe, then stopped working Friday night. We also had problems with our radio cable the same year, cutting in and out, which I don't think is the problem this year. I might take a look at it tommorow morning and see if i can diagnos the problem, if there is one. I'm also wondering if the interface will work with the relays and speed controllers from 2 years ago, I'm positive they will, but you never know.

[Dave Flowerday]

You're not trying to use an old OI by chance, are you? OIs from previous years won't link up with the new RC.

Most of this has already been mentioned, but:
- Swap out all the cables one by one to make sure it's not a bad cable
- Any difference between running it with a tether versus wirelessly?
- Is the OI unplugged from the power adapter when you're tethering it?
- Is the robot's battery sufficiently charged?
- Relays and speed controllers from last year should work, but I'd try unpluggging all joysticks from the OI and all inputs/outputs from the RC to try to eliminate a problem there
- When using the radio modems, are the LEDs lit up? The transmit LED on the OI should be flickering
- Along those lines, try a different radio channel to make sure it's not an interference issue (directions should be in the IFI manuals)

Let us know if you make any progress...

[pras870]

no, both the OI and RC are from this year

[IronSlayTallica]

Well, our programmer placed a call down to Texas and we found the problem and the answer. There was a series of buttons and commands and such to do and now it's fixed. wo0t! Thanks for all your help :)

[Mike Soukup]

Well, our programmer placed a call down to Texas and we found the problem and the answer. There was a series of buttons and commands and such to do and now it's fixed. wo0t! Thanks for all your help :)
Can you share this series of buttons & commands with us? One second our RC was working fine, the next it was dead. No connection between the OI & RC over radio or tethered, solid yellow 'program' light even though the default code was just downloaded to it. The user processor is running because we get debug data over the serial cable, but we can't get anything else to work. What's the secret to get it working?

[Jay Lundy]

Can you share this series of buttons & commands with us? One second our RC was working fine, the next it was dead. No connection between the OI & RC over radio or tethered, solid yellow 'program' light even though the default code was just downloaded to it. The user processor is running because we get debug data over the serial cable, but we can't get anything else to work. What's the secret to get it working? Sounds like a bug in the master code (LEDs and radio are both master functions correct?). I guess their series of buttons and commands resets the master?

Though I would think unplugging all power would solve a bug in the master code. Unless its due to something stored in EEPROM or program mem.

...does anyone else REALLY want to see the master code? I don't see how it could be a security risk.

[Eko]

Well, our programmer placed a call down to Texas and we found the problem and the answer. There was a series of buttons and commands and such to do and now it's fixed. wo0t! Thanks for all your help :)Hmm.... Yeah, could you enlighten us as to what exactly those steps were? Our OI and RC are ignoring each other too.

I have a few other details about our incident, but I'm thinking it's probably the same thing.

We've been trying to find a usb-serial converter that works, so we were using the laptop on and off, and when we werent using that, we had it hooked up to a desktop. The first indication (though we suspect that it's unrelated) that something weird was happening was this: We plugged the serial cable into the USB-serial converter, and *bang* our Terminal Window in IFI-Loader starts filling up. So a few minutes later, we have to program the 'bot again, so we switch the cable back to the desktop, program it, and get ready to test the new winch, and we notice that the OI and RC aren't talking to each other anymore. So, we look at the laptop screen, and I practically jjumped a foot into the air. The debug window was STILL scrolling! We still don't know how this happenned, but it was freaky. Not only was it scrolling, but the output was changing like it was actually receiving data from the robot controller. The only thing we can think is that the USB-Serial was buffering, and sending it to the computer even after it was disconnected.

One of the other members of my team was also doing some things with the radios, so we originally suspected that that had caused the problem, but I am doubting that, as I can't see anything on the radios that can be messed with.

[Eko]

It also seems that when we reset our robot controller, it forgets the program -- anyone else have that problem? We think it may be that we fried the EEPROM.

[Dave Flowerday]

It also seems that when we reset our robot controller, it forgets the program -- anyone else have that problem? We think it may be that we fried the EEPROM.
Go to Innovation First's site and look at their FAQ for the robot controller. There's a procedure listed there for when your RC and OI won't communicate.