Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

Hi,
We're having issues reimaging the cRIO. Thanks in advance for any input and help!

We're a rookie team from the UAE and trying to get a jumpstart on the upcoming season. Our mentoring team, LiveWire FRC 3562, was gracious enough to provide us with a copy of LabVIEW and we've been able to install it. We have the sample code ready for download.

-Initially (a few months past) we were able to image the cRIO.
- All the updates are installed, we've checked that repeatedly, and reinstalled all of them, in the correct sequence, just in case.
- The Driver Station confirms we have communication with the cRIO! This is exciting! There were cheers. :)
- But, the robot does not respond to joystick movement at all.
- A series of error messages appear in the Driver Station and searching them on various threads suggests we need to reimage the cRIO.
- However, when we attempt to use the FRC cRIO Imaging Tool, an error message pops up stating "No cRIO images found. Expected here: long path ending in /FRC Images"
- The path exists, the FRC Images folder exists and it has a couple of folders in it...

Questions, anyone have this same problem last season? Can anyone point us in the right direction? If anyone has recently imaged their cRIO, can you look at the content of your FRC Images folder and tell us the contents? Or maybe zip and email the contents if that would even work? Any other thoughts/approaches ? We don't have the LabVIEW disk so we can't reinstall LabVIEW but I don't think thats the problem...

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

If the image tool runs then you do not need the labview disk for that.

The image you are looking for is in a zipped file folder FRC_2013_v47.zip which should be in the cRio_images folder(no need to unzip the file). The imaging tool should show what image that is on the the cRio.

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

If the /FRC Images folder doesn't have the FRC_2013_v47.zip file in it, then you are missing the LabVIEW FRC specific update.
That's where the image file comes from.

Here's what my tool looks like with the v47 file shown as selected (1st image).

The second image is the kind of response you'd get if your PC IP didn't match the cRIO. It just has a little trouble identifying the cRIO type and what image it's running.

Wow! We changed nothing and at startup today it now recognizes the current image which is new. Still no movement/response to joysticks. So I would still love feedback... :)

These images are the error messages in driver station and our cRIO imaging tool...Attachment 15435

Here are the error messages via the driver station... Warning Attachment 15436

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

The driver station LEDs to the left of the messages show that the laptop is able to ping the robot. Further to the left are Communications and Code LEDs, what are the state of those?

The warnings shown in the window are lower level details. If they aren't errors, you don't really need to worry about them.

Greg McKaskle

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

At first glance the cRIO image seems to be fine. It's operating and talking back to the Driver station. I've attached three screenshots of the Driver Station app tabs for Operation, Diagnostics, and Setup, so you can compare them with your own. You can see that the warning/info messages on the second image of the Diagnostics tab are similar to your photo. These have the Driver station PC connected directly to the cRIO, so no bridge.

In additional to answering Greg's question, about the status shown on the left of all three screenshots (communications/Robot Code/Joysticks and Teleoperated Enabled),

A couple of things to check:

• Have you Enabled the Driver Station? (see the first image below, Operation tab)
• On the Driver Station Setup tab (third image below), the right side has a list of the joysticks you have connected. Check to see that yours is there, in the correct USB slot, and turns blue when you push a joystick button. It will be green if it's recognized as being plugged in.
• Are you running a default robot project? How did you download it to the robot?

Thanks so much for the help. Our river station appears to match yours' and the communication, joystick and robot code lights are all green. However, it's never turned blue. We are using default code. We downloaded it via the project explorer window... :)

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

If the joystick entry won't turn blue when you push a button, that means no commands will be sent to the robot.

Try hitting the F1 key to see if the button presses get recognized after that. That forces the Driver Station to check the USB joysticks again.

What kind of joystick are you using?

Would you take a snapshot of the Setup tab for us?

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

P.S.
Laptop USB is notorious for cutting power to USB ports while the laptop is on battery.

1. Make sure your laptop battery is fully charged and preferably plugged in.
2. Check your power saver settings to avoid power cutbacks when the battery is low.
   • Open the Device Manager. Win 8, hold the Windows key and press the 'x' key to open a menu in the lower-left and select "Device Manager." Using Win 7, open the Start Menu, type "Device Manager" in the search field, and click it.
   • Expand "Universal Serial Bus controllers"
   • Right-click each entry titled "USB Root Hub" and select "Properties"
   • Change to the "Power Management" tab
   • Uncheck the check box next to "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"
   • Press "OK"
   • Repeat this for each "USB Root Hub" entry
   • Reboot the computer
3. If using more than one USB device, i.e., multiple joysticks, distribute the USB load across all the laptop USB ports that you have. Keep critical joysticks on their own USB port.
4. Avoid ganging multiple USB devices up on a single USB hub. Bigger hubs are worse. If used, small hubs are best.
5. Avoid fancy joysticks that draw an excess of USB power. Power hungry fancy sticks or ones with glittery LEDs won't fare as well as plain vanilla generic joysticks.

Attachment 15446

Here is the image of our setup...

We're currently attempting to find the original default code to download, just in case we changed something by accident.

As far as the joysticks, this is probably a stupid question, but other than battery usage, does the model matter?
Meaning, do we have to select it somewhere within the code? We used V-Max 2013 flight joysticks for ps3/PC, nothing fancy, just generic joysticks...

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

From your screen, it seems that you have joysticks, code, and communication to your robot. It is disabled, and it isn't possible to know how the code was programmed.

My suggestion would be to enable the robot in teleop mode and carefully test it. Perhaps you should put the robot on blocks as you test. You should also be ready to disable or estop it by hitting the spacebar on the driver station if you need to.

Another approach is to go to the dashboard and put the robot into test mode. This lets you read sensors and it lets you enable and test outputs just one at a time.

Greg McKaskle

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

If you reimaged the cRIO, any user code was erased from it in the process. You must load your code onto the robot again before it will do anything.

Update...

We have code on the robot (downloaded default to cRIO via project explorer and right clicking run on robot main), and the driver station shows that it has code.

We have observed the joystick names going blue when we click buttons but not moving the joystick (changing the axis position).

We have observed the axis values changing as we move the joysticks in the test phase.

We still have not gotten motors to respond to joystick movement....

:) thanks for any advice!

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

..and you Enabled the Driver Station?

Sounds like the cRIO and code are doing fine.

How about the electrical side of things?
Lets discuss the wiring.
cRIO modules seem to be in the correct places.

• Do you have power wired separately to the Digital Sidecar from the Power Distribution Panel (PDP)?
• Are all three power LEDs on the Digital Sidecar bright green?
• Do you have PWM outputs 1 & 2 wired to speed controllers?
• What are the status lights on the speed controllers doing?
• Are the speed controllers separately wired for 12v from the PDP?

Yes to everything now. We originally did not have the digital sidecar wired but do now. It doesn't see to have changed anything... :( our talons are LEDs are blinking fast. One is blinking orange and one is alternating orange/red. We've attempted to recall rated but it didn't respond. If the robot is not responding to joysticks (although we can see the cRIO. recognizes them via test mode) - can it still calibrate?

More ideas please!! :)

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

The Talon and other speed controllers must receive PWM signals in order for calibration to work as intended.

The orange blink means that the controller isn't receiving a PWM signal.

Can you enable the robot? When it is enabled, if the Talons continue to blink orange, it means an electrical wiring problem or wiring that doesn't match code is the most likely issue.

Again, I'd probably enable the robot in test mode, scroll down the test tab and review the channel numbers for each motor. Run the motors individually as you verify that PWM wiring matches what was opened in the code. If most of the PWMs do not work or work unreliably, you may want to verify that the cable between the digital module and digital breakout board is properly seated and working properly. There were cables in the kit last year I believe that had a reversed connector. Also verify that the blue breakout has its own power connected and its LEDs are bright. The PWM current is sufficient to drive a few motors, but cannot supply more than three at the same time.

Greg McKaskle

We definitely have lights on the digital sidecar at this point.
We can enable the robot but how do we run motors? Is it a function of the test view? And if so, do we need to make separate portions of code?

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

There is a PDP on board? There's your problem :D

On a more serious note, Mark meant the PDB, Power Distribution Board

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

Page three of this tutorial -- https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-26314 -- may help out.

The short answer is that if you open a resource in your code and register it by name, it will show up. If you select an actuator value in the table, a control will display allowing you to modify the value. Motors are somewhat dangerous, so they utilize a momentary enable button. This means, you select, then set the desired speed, then click and hold the enable button for as long as you want the motor controller to be sent that value. Other actuators don't require the enable button.

If this doesn't work, please describe what it does do to the LEDs, etc. And don't forget to enable the robot on the driver station.

Greg McKaskle

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

Okay, still no movement from the joysticks... :(
We're starting to worry that we've missed something really basic. We've been reading/watching various tutorials but haven't stumbled across any solutions yet.

Following everything we're reading about the test function and no response.

- Are we correct that we can pull up default code, input our IP address, change jaguars to talons and download? Or is there something else critical that needs to happen?

- All updates are installed on the computer

- The cRIO is now imaged

- The talons are still fast blinking orange on one and red/orange alternating fast blinks on the other. We attempted to calibrate and didn't observe any change (it didn't give the red error or green success, just kept with the fast blinking).

- The test mode lets us see that it is measuring joystick movement, just the robot doesn't respond...

Again, thanks so much for any advice and input!

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

Greetings,
We ran into this same problem last night. Try flipping your PWM's in your controller. Your issues may not be in code, but physical. If the PWMs are in backward you will be the symptoms you are describing

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

That suggests a power or wiring problem. Alternating red and orange is not normal behavior for a Talon.

Can you tell us exactly what is connected to your Digital Sidecar, and where each wire from it goes? Photographs of your wiring would be useful, including the LEDs if possible.

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

The [url=http://www.crosstheroadelectronics.com/Talon.html]Talon User Manual[/url shows that red/orange is a fault.

The fault is likely internal to the Talon, or it could have been induced by miswiring. I would disconnect that Talon, at least until you get your issues resolved with the other Talon.

Update. In an effort to determine if the issue was the talon, we swapped the talons for jags. The jag LEDs were orange and blinking slowly. We changed the code from talons to jaguars, downloaded, enabled the robot in teleoperated and the motors "twitched" then stopped responding entirely, we tried test mode and disabling/enabling powering off/powering on and then our LEDs on the jags went off entirely. At that point our battery was low and it was time to leave for the day...
Next plan is try everything as is with a fully charged battery but ...
Suggestions after that?
Attached is the picture of current wiring. It's messy still and we're working on cleaning it up, but hopefully you can follow the wires. Attachment 15504

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

Where did you get your (what look to be) all black PWM cables?
Did you purchase them or make them yourself?
I can't see how they are marked to identify which of the three wires is the signal, and which is the ground wire. Getting those mixed up as wilsonmw04 suggested will of course prevent the Jags from getting the command signal.

If the Jags have an orange blinking light (after your battery is recharged), then the power to the jags is fine, and the trouble is likely in the chain of command.

• Code must Open PWM 1 and PWM 2 (this will be proven just by PWM1 and PWM 2 showing up in test mode) Make sure they are not Opened more than once.
• The Driver Station must be Enabled of course
• The 37-pin ribbon cable from the cRIO module to the Digital Sidecar must be secure and correct. Sometimes a potential source of trouble.
• The Digital Sidecar must be receiving 12v power from the Power Distribution Board and the three green power lights on the Sidecar must be bright green (it appears to be so wired from the photo)
• You can test the Sidecar PWM pins with a multimeter to see that the outer two are providing a signal. Neutral will give a reading of ~1.5v, and full power in test mode will read about 2.3v on a multimeter.
• The PWM cable must be correctly oriented to get the command signal from the Sidecar to the correct Jag pin. Signal pin is towards the side edge of the Jag. At the Sidecar the Signal pin is the inside pin.
• The PWM cable could be faulty. You can test the Jag end of the PWM cable with a multimeter to be sure the outer two pins are providing some signal. Same voltages as before.

Thanks! This gives us some things to test! We'll see if we can find the issue... PWM cables are AndyMark, there's an all black outer casing but the very ends have the black, white, red exposed but we'll double check those and measure voltages... Thank you!

Re: Reimaging the cRIO - Help!
 

I'm willing to do a Skype session, sometimes seeing and interactive is the quickest way to get things going. I just saw this now, so if you are still having trouble and want to try this, PM me...

Good luck!