Program deployed, no response from robot [Archive]

RahatAhmed

10-01-2012, 21:05

Hi, I'm a rookie this year, and I'm having trouble with the confusing documentation that we get. So far we've got the basic build done and the radio hooked up to the cRIO. We've had some networking problems as far as wireless goes, so we just use a long ethernet connection(we'll deal with one problem at a time).

I have been able to deploy the default RobotMain.vi program as-is to the robot. We're programming on the classmate so in order to get to the Driver Station we have to disconnect from the cRIO and switch user to Driver. After a lot of troubleshooting we have been able to get the DS to recognize the cRIO and that it has robot code. It also recognizes one of our joysticks. However, enabling the program doesn't do anything (in any mode). In the error box it mentions something about a while loop taking too long(I can't remember exactly right now, i'll edit this tomorrow when I'm back at school). The jaguars also keep flashing yellow no matter what we do.

1. Does anyone know how to get the program working?
2. Should I image our cRIO? We had it imaged on the kickoff so I don't know if it's the latest or not.
3. Should I install a newer Driver Station?
4. Should I install drivers for the Logitech Attack 3 joystick?
5. Slightly unrelated: Is there a good place to learn how to program the cRIO using LabVIEW? Not just the language itself but to control the robot.

Cancel

10-01-2012, 22:38

Check your ribbon cable going from your cRIO and your sidecar. This year some of the cables have been messed up. Follow this guide to fix it.

http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2012_Assets/DB37%20Ribbon%20Cable%20Assembly%20-%20Rework%20Instructions.pdf

Alan Anderson

10-01-2012, 23:05

We're programming on the classmate so in order to get to the Driver Station we have to disconnect from the cRIO and switch user to Driver.

You don't have to switch users. You can run the Driver Station as a Developer.

The jaguars also keep flashing yellow no matter what we do.

This means they're not getting a PWM signal (I assume you aren't using CAN). It could be a wiring problem in several places, and troubleshooting that will require looking in detail at a number of things.

First, is the big amber Robot Signal Light plugged into the Digital Sidecar? If not, you can still look at the little green LED next to the RSL connector. What is the light doing when the robot is disabled? What is it doing when you enable the robot?

Second, is the Digital Sidecar properly powered? Are the BATT, +5v, and +6v green LEDs all brightly lit?

Third, is the cable from the cRIO's digital module to the Digital Sidecar assembled correctly? Some of the ones supplied in the Kit of Parts have one of the connectors backwards. See here (http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2012_Assets/DB37%20Ribbon%20Cable%20Assembly%20-%20Rework%20Instructions.pdf) for details.

5. Slightly unrelated: Is there a good place to learn how to program the cRIO using LabVIEW? Not just the language itself but to control the robot.

I've heard good things about the http://www.frcmastery.com/ videos.

RahatAhmed

11-01-2012, 09:24

You don't have to switch users. You can run the Driver Station as a Developer.
Do I just follow the instructions on installing the Driver Station again on the Developer account?

First, is the big amber Robot Signal Light plugged into the Digital Sidecar? If not, you can still look at the little green LED next to the RSL connector. What is the light doing when the robot is disabled? What is it doing when you enable the robot?.
I am not sure which green LED this is, do you have a picture of it? Also we have not installed the Robot Signal Light yet.

Second, is the Digital Sidecar properly powered? Are the BATT, +5v, and +6v green LEDs all brightly lit?

They are brightly lit, all the time while the robot is powered.

Third, is the cable from the cRIO's digital module to the Digital Sidecar assembled correctly? Some of the ones supplied in the Kit of Parts have one of the connectors backwards. See here (http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2012_Assets/DB37%20Ribbon%20Cable%20Assembly%20-%20Rework%20Instructions.pdf) for details.

Our cable seems to be fine(no twist).
We also get an error message on the Driver Station. Something about error -44061 "left and right motor" loop is taking too long.

I've heard good things about the http://www.frcmastery.com/ videos.[/QUOTE]

notmattlythgoe

11-01-2012, 09:31

I would also suggest that you try to get your hands on another computer to program on, it will make your life 100x easier. Even an old laptop donated from someone that isn't using it anymore will work.

RahatAhmed

11-01-2012, 09:33

notmattlythgoe

11-01-2012, 09:39

Yes a desktop would work, and if you have a wireless router you could just plug into that and not have to worry about wireless card.

RahatAhmed

11-01-2012, 09:40

Yes a desktop would work, and if you have a wireless router you could just plug into that and not have to worry about wireless card.
How would a desktop connected to a wireless router be able to communicate to the radio on the robot?

notmattlythgoe

11-01-2012, 09:45

RahatAhmed

11-01-2012, 09:56

Same way it would with a wireless router, you set the IP address of the computer the same way you do for wireless. The router is basically just giving it wireless access. I will try to find the instructions for past years to set up a router configuration.
I thought that wireless routers created their own private network, separate from the radio's? The only way I could imagine that it would work is if you configured a router(maybe one with custom firmware like DDWRT) to become a wireless bridge that connects to the radio and connects the desktop to it. Then again, I don't really have a formal education in networking so what do I know.

notmattlythgoe

11-01-2012, 10:13

RahatAhmed

11-01-2012, 10:58

Here are some instructions on how to set up a router to go in between a computer and the radio.
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Community/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2010_Assets/2-2010FRCControl%20System-Getting%20Started-Rev-0.7.pdf
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just use the radio in AP mode and buy a wireless adapter for a desktop? We don't have any routers to use.

notmattlythgoe

11-01-2012, 11:02

Yeah, that would be fine. We had the router from previous years.

RufflesRidge

11-01-2012, 11:11

Do I just follow the instructions on installing the Driver Station again on the Developer account?

The installation shouldn't be account specific. You should be able to find the Driver Station in the Start menu on the Developer account or in C:\Program Files\FRC Driver Station

RahatAhmed

11-01-2012, 11:32

The installation shouldn't be account specific. You should be able to find the Driver Station in the Start menu on the Developer account or in C:\Program Files\FRC Driver Station

Oh thank you very much!now we just gotta get those drivers working

RahatAhmed

11-01-2012, 18:03

Here's the error code we get (obviously the date is wrong, I copied and pasted from elsewhere. But the error is identical):

ERROR <Code> -44061 occurred at "Left and Right Motors" in the VI path: Robot Main.vi
<time>19:42:17 02/17/2011
FRC: The loop that contains RobotDrive is not running fast enough. This error can occur if the loop contains too much code, or if one or more other loops are starving the RobotDrive loop.

And to give a brief record of what we've done: The laptop, radio, and cRIO were imaged and set up at the kickoff. I installed LabVIEW on the laptop and then installed the three updates that were given to us at the kickoff as well. Then I reset the router, and set it up as the tutorials in LabVIEW say to. Had some trouble with the wireless so we used a long ethernet cable so we could deal with that later. Camera and Joystick work fine.

One thing I'm not clear on is the proper way to upload a program to the cRIO. Do we just press run and wait for it to deploy? Somewhere else on CD I found instructions saying to right click the build target and click "build", then "run on startup". Which is the better way to do it, at least for development?

RufflesRidge

11-01-2012, 18:15

You get an instance or two of that error, or does it keep repeating? The first is normal, the second is a problem.

RahatAhmed

11-01-2012, 18:21

You get an instance or two of that error, or does it keep repeating? The first is normal, the second is a problem.
It repeats.

ehlochbr

12-01-2012, 00:17

We have the same problem and I've triple checked everything!!

I read the posts about the possibly bad cable, but that wouldn't be a problem if we're using last years DB37 cable right?

Would appreciate any suggestions for this because I'm stuck...

Thanks.

RahatAhmed

12-01-2012, 08:30

Is it possible that the default project has some bad code? Could someone upload a project that they know works on their robot, to see if the code is the problem?

ehlochbr

12-01-2012, 09:54

I'm going to try to create the LV project from scratch tonight. Maybe something got messed when the SW update changed our code to reflect the new slotting in the cRIO.
Perhaps starting fresh and creating the project in LV2011 will work. I'll post when I'm done with the results.

ehlochbr

13-01-2012, 00:21

Nothing new. Tried making a new project from scratch and it didn't work... I'm out of ideas for now.

Greg McKaskle

13-01-2012, 08:38

What errors are you getting? Have you tried running an example? Can you elaborate on what you've tried and what does work?

Greg Mckaskle

ehlochbr

13-01-2012, 10:03

Sure. We mostly have camera errors (error 44003 to be exact as well as some communication errors). It says something about not being able to connect to the camera and authenticity. We manually set up the camera to have the username and password that were recommended so I'm not sure what else to do to eliminate this error.

The only thing I can think to try next is to use the setup program for the camera and see if that helps. Like I said, we manually configured the camera so maybe when we setup the camera manually, we missed something but that's my last idea...

We also, occasionally, get an error that says the loop that contains robot drive is running too slow, but I've looked through everything and all our loops have a delay built-in so there isn't anything starving the processor that I can see. Plus, robot drive is used in many different places. I'm not sure exactly which part of the code it's talking about and the error message doesn't specify.

I appreciate your help.

RahatAhmed

13-01-2012, 16:49

Still out of ideas. I'd really appreciate if someone would upload a verified working project that we could test out to see if it really is the code or something else.

SuperS_5

13-01-2012, 22:25

Maybe you can post some of your code, the vision code is where I would start. (Post a snippet instead of just a screenshot.) Does this happen regardless of driver station mode?
I am guessing something is hogging all of the cRIOs CPU, and the RobotDrive.vi is not getting enough priority to run, or is never executed in the first place.

One thing I'm not clear on is the proper way to upload a program to the cRIO. Do we just press run and wait for it to deploy? Somewhere else on CD I found instructions saying to right click the build target and click "build", then "run on startup". Which is the better way to do it, at least for development?
*For development, you can simply run the Main.VI, and LabVIEW will automatically deploy, and you still have all the debugging tools available. (It can use a lot of bandwidth.)
*Deploying sets your program to run without the laptop used to deploy. This is more useful for letting the drivers train, while more programming is going on. The code is however erased every time you reboot the cRIO. (That includes power cycles.) If your code is bad, the robot is easily recoverable by simply resetting the power.
*Deploying, and setting "run on start-up" will always run your code, even after power cycles. This is for competition and any time you need to use the robot without the computer used to program it. (EG. Drivers training on days without the programmers.) I typically wouldn't use this until I have tested it by simply deploying first. This will rule out issues with your code maxing out the cRIOs CPU.

RahatAhmed

13-01-2012, 22:45

tilky

13-01-2012, 23:05

you do not need to put code that is in teleop inside a while loop. it loops automatically

tilky

14-01-2012, 08:28

the problem is that you put a while loop inside of the teleop code. Because the code automatically repeats itself, if you repeat it inside of the code, and it takes longer than it does to execute teleop again, it would come up with an error. Try taking the while loop out.

Programmer3941

19-01-2012, 22:35

We finally got it working. Our electrical team messed with the pins coming from the jaguars, and said they put them on channels 3 and 4 or something. Basically the pins suggested from the quick build were not the right ones. We're not sure why, or how we would go about adding new motors. I guess we'll figure it out.

RahatAhmed, my rookie team has been having a nearly identical problem with our Jaguar when we try to run a program we made to operate a single test motor. We have had absolutely no output response from the motor, and the yellow light on the Jaguar constantly flashes. We have not received any error messages, though, concerning the content of our code or otherwise. Could you explain in more detail what your electrical team did with the pins and channels to get the Jaguars and everything working?

Thanks in advance.

RahatAhmed

19-01-2012, 23:15

RahatAhmed, my rookie team has been having a nearly identical problem with our Jaguar when we try to run a program we made to operate a single test motor. We have had absolutely no output response from the motor, and the yellow light on the Jaguar constantly flashes. We have not received any error messages, though, concerning the content of our code or otherwise. Could you explain in more detail what your electrical team did with the pins and channels to get the Jaguars and everything working?

Thanks in advance.

I'm not on the electrical team, but they said something about moving the pins on the digital sidecar from the jaguar down two channels. So the jaguar on channel 1 is on 3, and the jaguar on channel 2 is on 4. I really don't know what this means, but that's all I know.

Alan Anderson

20-01-2012, 00:23

I'm not on the electrical team, but they said something about moving the pins on the digital sidecar from the jaguar down two channels. So the jaguar on channel 1 is on 3, and the jaguar on channel 2 is on 4. I really don't know what this means, but that's all I know.

It might mean that your 37-pin ribbon cable is assembled wrong. If you plug it into itself, there should be no twist. See here (http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2012_Assets/DB37%20Ribbon%20Cable%20Assembly%20-%20Rework%20Instructions.pdf) for details.

Programmer3941

20-01-2012, 17:02

It might mean that your 37-pin ribbon cable is assembled wrong. If you plug it into itself, there should be no twist. See here (http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/uploadedFiles/Robotics_Programs/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2012_Assets/DB37%20Ribbon%20Cable%20Assembly%20-%20Rework%20Instructions.pdf) for details.

I know for sure that our ribbon cable is fine (we've done the plugging into itself test). My team doesn't meet again for a few days, so I won't be able to look at everything we have set up electrically. Until then, are there any other common wiring issues that I should be aware of (we are very green in the art of electricity).
We have not tried moving the Jaguar pins into different channels yet (we will look at it when we have our next meet).