Need help running wireless for practice
 

Hi folks -
We are trying to run wireless to get some practice driving. We imaged our wireless router per directions. We can see and connect via the pc wireless to our router. The trouble lies when we bring up the drivers station. We get the red light on communication and robot code. We have played with the drivers station's ip address from 10.xx.yy.5 and 10.xx.yy.9 with no luck.

We have all other network adapters disabled. We also have the firewall disabled.

Is there a place where it gives directions to run wireless?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

If there is a red light next to communications and robot code, it makes me think of a few problems.

First, have you imaged the cRIO with the FRC Imaging Tool? That is needed to set the IP address on the cRIO itself.

Second, is the cRIO powered and plugged into the router?

Last, is there any user code running on the cRIO? Neither of the lights will light if there isn't the appropriate FRC code running. Try loading a default coding project and see if that gets anywhere.

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

So you are connecting wirelessly to the router on the robot? (It's more complicated if you have a second router and have the robot's router connect to the second, but we've done it before)

Have you tried pinging the robot's IP address? It should be 10.xx.yy.2. I assume this will fail, if the driver station can't communicate with the robot, but the output can be helpful in determining what's wrong.

Also, does the driver station find the cRIO if you use a wired connection?

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

We can run tethered by connecting an ethernet cable from the router to the computer. Then the communications and robot code are green and we are driving. I can ping the CRIO when we are tethered. The CRIO works great tethered.

(I didn't upgrade the CRIO image to this year yet until we get our second CRIO working so it is running last years.)

I'm not at the robot right now but I'll try pinging the CRIO when we are wireless when we get there tomorrow.

So are the steps for running wireless normally:
1. Turn on robot with the wireless router. (CRIO connected via ethernet cable to router. Both CRIO and router must have power) The router must have a beautiful blue light when it is ready.
2. On the drivers station computer set ip address 10.xx.yy.9 when we are trying to run wireless. (It is 10.xx.yy.5 when running tethered)
3. On drivers station computer connect to the wireless router on the robot. Note: You will get a warning about limited connectivity but I assume that is ok since we can't access the internet through the robot ;)
4. On drivers station computer bring up the drivers station. It should automatically then connect to the robot.

Do those sound like the correct steps?

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

If it works fine when tethered, then I don't think it's an imaging problem. I would make sure that you are really connected to the robot's network - I know our laptops occasionally switch wireless networks on us when we reboot the robot. Anyway, hopefully pinging it will help solve the problem.

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

I'm almost certain the Driver Station computer must be found at 10.xx.yy.5 no matter what. Try switching your computer IP address to that and see if it connects like it should.

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

Did you switch from the local dashboard to remote dashboard on your driver station?

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

The driver station laptop should be able to connect to the cRIO wirelessly with that switch set to local dashboard. We've never had to switch it to remote dashboard to get it to work, and we've been running it that way since the switch to the driver station software we have now.

The driver station should automatically update your computer's settings as needed when you input your team number. On the settings tab of the driver station, delete the number currently in there and retype your team number and press enter. We've had communication problems this year that were solved once we reconfigured that number.

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

If you are just using your dlink for practice, i would suggest using it the 2.4 or 5GHz mode. Use 5GHz if your driver stations supports it, because that frequency has less interference.

In the above modes, your dlink will be in an access point mode, where everything connects to it.

If you are an advanced user, I would suggest configuring it manually. I don't have one in front of me right now, but here are roughly the settings I used.
IP: Static IP, 10.24.49.1*
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gatway: 10.24.49.4*

SSID: TEAM2449*
Security: none. no need for complications among friends

DHCP Server: Yes, starting at 100.

After you have configured this, you will be able to access the configuration page at 10.24.49.1*

*Make sure you switch 24.49 or 2449 or your team number.

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

Can you ping the router 10.x.x.1 when you try to connect wirelessly? Can you ping the crio wirelessly or not? m1tche11d is right, the driver's station app automatically sets the ip address for the adapters you select. Make sure they are selected or select manual and do them yourself .5 for wired or .9 for wireless.

I would do this:

0. go into the network adapter settings, clicked "Advanced" under tcpip v4 and make sure that only one ip address is listed there. Only keep the 10.x.x.x one and delete the others. Do this for both the wired and the wireless connection.
1. Run the driver station app.
2. select the adapters to be configured in the driver station app.
3. Reenter team number.
4. Disconnect from all wireless connections and connect again to the one with you team number.
5. See if driver's station gets green lights for connect and robot code.
6. Try pinging if no green lights.

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

I'm not sure which tip helped us out but we are now running wireless! Thanks for your help.

Re: Need help running wireless for practice
 

Make sure you saved the code on the CRIO