Is any part of your control system broken? [Archive]

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nuggetsyl

09-02-2009, 16:05

I wanted to take a poll to see how many people have broken a part or all of their controls from the new system. If you decide to post can you please tell what broke and how you think it broke? Also i am going to leave jags out of the poll because it has it own thread. Please post if multiple parts have failed.

nathanww

09-02-2009, 20:33

We've broken a Jaguar, an accelerometer, and a couple of the cold cathode lights that we put on our driver station(it got shoved into a truck and they got crushed)

thefro526

09-02-2009, 20:48

As far as I know, We've only messed up one of our analog breakouts. It was wired wrong and released a bit of smoke but it still works....

DonRotolo

09-02-2009, 23:07

The ETH2 port on the DS is loose and inoperative. Not sure, but methinks a student got a bit enthusiastic with unplugging a cable.

Betty_Krocker

10-02-2009, 07:48

we didn't break anything... yet...

I did bounce a battery across the room, and digital sidecars don't take too well to be dropped off of the top of the robot sitting on blocks...

Bharat Nain

10-02-2009, 08:42

The ETH2 port on the DS is loose and inoperative. Not sure, but methinks a student got a bit enthusiastic with unplugging a cable.

This happen to both of our DS's. We were extremely meticulous about unplugging and plugging things in carefully and avoiding ESD. After the second one, we were wondering if we're the only ones.

royalpl

10-02-2009, 09:15

I accidently put the positive in the negative on the analog breakout. Smoke, fire, and a fried breakout.

Wayne C.

10-02-2009, 22:03

Time to give the reason we posted this poll.

Since we opened the box on the control system back in December we have had nothing but different hardware problems with it. let me explain.

First of all we are programming with C++ and installed the system on a backing of plywood in a practice robot base with a shooter mechanism mounted to it. This robot has always been kept in a classroom away from metal working tools- no shards or such other than what is generated by the machine itself. The cRIO is electrically isolated from the frame. We are using only Victor 884s for speed controllers.

Now for the fun-

Our first problem came when we tried to install programming and set up the system. At that time we discovered that one of the ethernet ports on the driver station was working intermittently. Since you need to chain the download through the station this completely screwed up our installation and only after reimaging and such with a new driver station (purchased) did we get it running right. (hence the earlier posts here expressing much dismay)

Weeks went by and code was being developed. Camera tracking, various sensors, drives- all seemed to be working. Then disaster #2. The 12V bridge modem port on the distribution board simply stopped working. Likewise the diodes of the 5V camera power worked when you touched the board although the connection read a continual 5V when metered. Obviously there was some contact issue inside the board. So we could get anything done we attempted to run the bridge off the nearby 12V source only to find that when the robot was in heavy use and voltage dropped the modem would reset itself and the robot would run away wild (and it pinned Kristian on top of a desk before we could disable it).

At about the same time as the 12V port went dead the cRIo started flashing a status light message and an error came up when we tried to reimage, reset the IPs or do any coding. Fortunately our friends at team 103 bailed us out with their second system and we could continue work. We are working with NI now to rectify that whole situation.

To add insult to injury right after we set up the new system and started to get some code in the second driver station failed on us. This time the OTHER ethernet port simply stopped working.

So now we sit with incomplete code a week from ship date and thoroughly disgusted with the system, FIRST, robotics and life in general.

Before everyone starts diagnosing that we did this or that wrong let me say that we followed every manual we could find from WPI, FIRST and NI to the letter and we have hundreds of pages of website info read, assessed, filed and followed. We have been painfully careful about static discharge from our hands and clothing. The driver station is grounded per FIRST specs.
The practice robot hasn't driven more than 50 feet or so and has spent most of its time on blocks while being programmed. We aren't banging into walls with it.

So at this point is is a possibility that team 25 will have a non-functional robot at the NJ regional in 3 weeks. It will look nice....

In closing- to theorize what may be happening. When we code and work on programming we are running the robot for extended periods of time. I am beginning to believe that simple extended time use is destroying the system components and that is what somehow corrupted our cRIO. I am not to sure how we program a bot without running it and testing but I am just a robot coach and maybe I am missing something.

So if anyone sees something we obviously overlooked clue us in. We have a major money investment in a 3 event season riding on whether these parts will actually perform as promised.

Thanks

WC :cool:

cloud_254

10-02-2009, 22:10

so far so good. nothing broken or inoperable

Vikesrock

11-02-2009, 02:24

Thank you for posting this poll.

As of now the only thing we have broken is 1 Analog breakout by wiring the PD with reversed polarity (luckily everything else is polarity protected). It is also lucky for the student I never found out who it was :ahh:

However, our system has very little runtime under its belt to this point.

I will be watching this thread closely to see what kind of failures teams are experiencing. The DS in particular appears to be plagued with a variety of problems. It is very worrying to see a respected, thorough team such as 25 posting comments such as the one Wayne has posted here.

Lowfategg

11-02-2009, 02:28

So far nothing has broke on us (then again we have not fully tested everything).

Hopefully everything holds up.

chmp09

13-02-2009, 22:54

Nothing is broken yet *knock on wood*, but i have noticed that teams are having problems with the DS. There was an update a while back that made it mandatory to ground the DS. I recommend that all teams do this soon. Also, always remember to touch the robot or some large piece of metal before touching electrical components.

ComradeNikolai

13-02-2009, 23:14

We had a Spike fail; the cause was pretty obvious: the 12V and ground were wired into M+ and M-, and my clue that something was wrong was when the circuit breaker tripped about 15 times and the wires got really hot.

We also have had a lot of pins bending; one bent completely flat after we put the relay module back in -- it didn't respond, so we took it out and discovered this. It was incredibly nerve racking to have to unbend this pin YESTERDAY -- no time to get a new CRIO from NI if it was irreparable. It was probably the scariest thing I've had to do :ahh: but it works now. Just be very careful when inserting modules and only remove them when you must...

I also had to unbend pins on the digital sidecar, but I suspect these got bent when someone dropped a battery onto a jaguar... yeah, that left a nice dent.

DtD

14-02-2009, 09:13

One of our team members wired two Jaguars backwards (Like, power in the motor side and motor on the power side), one of them survived though.

~DtD

p00rleno

15-02-2009, 21:42

Only thing that dosn't work 100% is we cant get a battery readout voltage anymore.

Zach O

16-02-2009, 14:30

Our Jaguar spewed smoke just yesterday.

blhenze

16-02-2009, 23:00

This afternoon one of our programmers uploaded an updated program for the robot. It uses tank drive and we needed to add a couple of victors to control our collection system. The code loaded fine, but when we restarted the robot the Driver Station displayed the following:

Team: 2333
System: Watchdog
Mode: Teleoperated
Battery: 00.00 v
DS Rev: 2009-02-10a3

And everything quit working.

Do you have any suggestions? Our Robot is dead!

Mentor007

22-02-2009, 11:10

Our team also has had difficulty with the DS ethernet ports failing. We also have implemented the grounding modification and constructed per the rules. Ports appear to fail when we are tethered. Generally our robot is on wood blocks under this condition and we do have conveyors moving, so we are thinking ESD is the problem. Both ports on our original DS failed, and then 1 more on another DS. I think there may be inadequate Transient Voltage Suppression on the Ethernet inputs in the DS. If this is the case it is unclear whether the transient is between the Ethernet Differential Pair wires or between the ground level of the DS and CRio. I am betting on the later. For whatever reason, the cRio side seems to be more robust. FIRST so far has been great in working with us on replacements, but we are concerned as we head to competition we will have no choice but to operate tethered which appears to be the worst situation. Advice to all teams is to have a defined procedure on how to hook up tethered and make sure all follow it. We are located in the dry winter Northeast so it would be interesting to note if teams in more humid locations are suffering similar failures.

lynca

23-02-2009, 15:10

One compliant I have with the control system so far is the Digital Sidecar male 0.1" header pins.
Our male pins are starting to get bent and destroyed just from wiring up the electronics in only 6 weeks. At this rate I will have a backup driver station because I know the driver station pins will eventually break.

In future years, I hope FIRST switches to female connectors for the DSC similar to the VEX controller.

Female header pins, http://www.vexrobotics.com/vex-robotics-microcontroller.shtml

Male header pins, http://first.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/First/digital_sidecar_rdax_600x357.jpg

Brandon_L

26-02-2009, 21:00

Oh darn, there's no option for "everything"

crake

26-02-2009, 21:33

What do you mean "everything"?

charrisTTI

27-02-2009, 04:56

At DC regional we had not one, but two driver's station failures. First one lost ethernet port 2, the second one lost ethernet port 1.

When port two failed the link light continued to behave normally, but you could not communicate through the port.

Port one failed while connected to the robot. We successfully downloaded and ran several test programs. It was then time for another practice match, but we could not establish communications with the CRio. Bad port again. In this case the link light stays on (slightly dim, but no flickering) even when cable is removed.

buildmaster5000

20-05-2009, 17:24

Our drivers station randomly stopped working after the Washington DC regional. we also lost a Jaguar the week before the competition. Both were replaced free of charge!!!

McGurky

22-05-2009, 07:59

Ive noticed that when you use a PWM/Servo wire with the Digital sidecar, If it is "tabbed" like the Futaba servos, it will not work. The tabs prevent the male header to fully fit on the female pins on the digital sidecar. Our team (more like me) didn't notice that this was happening, and some of the headers were not connected properly. They were slid over one pin, and thus rendering them useless. We don't know for sure if this is what caused our Digital sidecar to fry, but now we have no 5v regulated in one of them. but thankfully we had two!! (quick fix; if you take an exacto knife, you can quickly cut off the tabs)

Lesson learned: Always have another person Double/triple check the wiring before turning on the robot! You can never be too careful. I am working on writing up a "checklist" so when someone is double checking the wiring, they look at everything, and then check it off. hopefully this will help to prevent future "stupid human errors"

-Kyle

EricVanWyk

22-05-2009, 09:11

Jon236

22-05-2009, 10:07

We had issues, not with the Digital Sidecar, but with the Analog Breakout.

1. The plastic cover made it nearly impossible to align the pwm cables properly. Our solution was to take the cover off, thread the cable through the opening, insert the pwm cable and reattach the plastic cover.

2. The wago power connector stopped making a positive latch and started working loose. This caused our pod potentiometers to be unreadable, thereby disabling our steering. We will need to revert to hot glue...just when I thought we didn't need it anymore!:eek:

Chief Pride

22-05-2009, 10:59

We have killed 3 driver stations with static. They were all grounded to the case like the manual states... I don't think this does anything.

Our competition room has a static problem without the regolith, and the crappy drivers stations. So I don't blame it all on the drivers stations, but I do think they should be made better.

NickE

22-05-2009, 11:09

There was an update a while back that made it mandatory to ground the DS. I recommend that all teams do this soon..Teams should have already done this, as it was mandatory to compete this season.

On 254, we haven't broken anything this season. However, during the beta test with 668 and 100, one of the ethernet ports on the driver station snapped off.

Alan Anderson

22-05-2009, 12:39

Ive noticed that when you use a PWM/Servo wire with the Digital sidecar, If it is "tabbed" like the Futaba servos, it will not work. The tabs prevent the male header to fully fit on the female pins on the digital sidecar.

The RC Extension Cable update (http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Relay%20Cable%20Memo.pdf), released to teams back in November, addresses this issue.

1. The plastic cover made it nearly impossible to align the pwm cables properly. Our solution was to take the cover off, thread the cable through the opening, insert the pwm cable and reattach the plastic cover.

I fully appreciate the intent of having the connectors locked in place. However, the particular solution chosen was a lot more trouble than it needed to be. It was impossible to remove a single servo connector from the Digital I/O pins on the Digital Sidecar without pulling on the wires to work it free. The couple of connectors we used with only a single wire installed wouldn't come out without putting way too much force on that wire.

McGurky

22-05-2009, 22:25

Kyle -

Can you confirm that the 5V rail is broken, and not simply shorted? So far, all of the cases of "broken 5V" were actually "shorted 5V". To check, remove all connections from the offending board and apply power. Check the 6V LED (the silkscreen on the case is backwards :() If it still doesn't work, check for any metal shavings that might be shorting.

- Eric

we tried a couple times to get the 5v light to light up, and it worked fine before. I don't have it with me currently, but I am pretty sure that we have shaken it an done all of that jazz to remove any metal shavings. It might actually be working properly now but i haven't tested it yet.

The RC Extension Cable update, released to teams back in November, addresses this issue.

Thank you, I never got this memo, it is nice to see that this was a problem with other teams also. Doesn't make me feel as bad about doing this ;)

Bryan Herbst

04-07-2009, 11:50

2052 had our ethernet port 2 break off at the competition, so we borrowed one for the remainder.

We then brought our bot to a presentation at Medtronic, and ethernet port 1 broke off.

Prior to competition (during practice), our driver and a handful of other people decided it would be a good idea to practice in our gymnastics gym on top of the gymnastics mats. Surprise surprise, static came along and fried our analog module (I forget, maybe digital as well), and a jag.

rjn

02-08-2009, 22:46

It was even better, it fried a digital, analog, and a solonoid(don't know why it was in there, but it was lol)and what I think was two jags, being that a turret jag also only worked in one direction after that, but that could have occurred some at other time.

lingomaniac88

03-08-2009, 20:39

One of the Ethernet ports on our driver station snapped off at our regional. If we're keeping our old DS for 2010, it shouldn't be a problem, since I recall being able to program the robot with a direct Ethernet connection between a laptop and the cRIO.

Also, we couldn't get our servos to budge. It didn't matter, since we ended up not using our camera anyway.