Chief Delphi - CRIO-FRCIII

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Whoa. Gunna try to keep up here.

Those times are from my recollection. Please don't quote me on them just yet.

They are trying to get a USB WiFi dongle working and signs are pretty positive right now. That would mean no more DLink.

The Pneumatics Control Module (PCM) is produced by Cross the Road electronics (makers of the CANipede) communicating via CAN with the roboRio.

Even with the PCM and a breakout for the expansion slot (called the MXP) it should still weigh considerably less than the cRIO. I haven't weighed everything, but it's not close to the chunk of metal the cRIO is.

The roboRIO reboots somewhere below 5V (don't remember exactly) but there may be loss of functionality prior to that. I was just watching for a reboot.

Quote:

In addition, National Instruments reps are planning on coming up to do a LabVIEW seminar and an hour long seminar on the new control system at the State Championships Thursday morning as a part of our '1718 Presents' seminar series.

Will something similar be offered at Worlds?

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Originally Posted by Jefferson (Post 1364868)

Whoa. Gunna try to keep up here.
They are trying to get a USB WiFi dongle working and signs are pretty positive right now. That would mean no more DLink.

Hmm. That would seem to imply that the video camera/server is going to have to be plugged into the new CRIO Ethernet port to get to the network. On the other hand I won't miss having to find a good place to mount the DLink.

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Originally Posted by Arhowk (Post 1364772)

Well, for either of you I suppose

How is the new Java API? Is it simply the old one or did they re-do it with all Java 8ness
Is it easy to upgrade / switch JRE's on the niRIO?
(not familiar with C++ on cRIO but our team is considering C++ for 2015) I've heard most about the upgrade from Java ME to SE but is it also being updated to C++11? (or does it already have C++11)
How easy is it to write code on standard Java SE / cRIO Java and port it to niRIO?
What are the deploy times?

1. The Java API is, at this point, the same as the old API. Then again, it's not even all fully functional yet - It's a better idea to use what they know to get things working perfectly before looking to refactor just for the sake of refactoring.
2. You'll be using whatever JRE they decide is FRC legal. The RobotRio is running a RTLinux distro, which makes it very easy to play with.
3. I'm not sure about the C++ version
4. Just load up the FRC plugin for Eclipse, and go to town... personally, I like Eclipse a lot better than Netbeans.
5. Deploy seems a lot quicker - we were going from clicking to driving in under 30 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Jared (Post 1364833)

I have a few questions.

How long does it take for the whole thing to turn on, including the radio?

Is it still WPIlib for Java?

What's the radio look like? Are we still using the d-links?

How low does the voltage have to go to brown out the radio/controller?

1. We didn't time it, but it seems quicker than the current cRIO.
2. Yes, WPI is still heavily involved, and we're using WPIlib.
3. Currently, it's a USB dongle. The final radio hasn't been decided on yet, and last I heard FIRST was looking at a number of options, including the dongle. Nice point for the dongle: No external power, which means no radio resetting due to power issues!

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Originally Posted by theawesome1730 (Post 1364841)

I realize the roboRIO has a shorter profile but a larger foot print and now must have external modules for solenoid breakouts and additional analog and digital inputs. Does weight with all the extra components end up similar to the cRIO or is it lighter weight (as we would hope it to be)?

Overall it weighs less. The modules are all small, simple plastic boxes with nice connectors, very light weight.

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Originally Posted by xXhunter47Xx (Post 1364852)

I thought the roboRIO was the radio as well? That's what I saw at the display model at San Diego or at least what I thought I saw.

Do any of you know what the Solenoid Module will be? I've been told it's a CANipede RCM but it looks a bit old to be used in conjuncture with the new hardware.

It is not the CANipede. It's a new module developed by CTRE. It connects to the RoboRio through CAN, and provides:
- Solenoid outputs
- a jumper to switch between 12 and 24V (with an internal boost, you only need to power it from 12V)
- A pressure switch input
- A compressor output

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Originally Posted by electrian21 (Post 1364871)

Will something similar be offered at Worlds?

No idea: we just arrange the MI State stuff. We tried to have the NI guys come up last year to the Michigan State Champs but they had some last minute things come up. This year we're lucky enough to have them planning on attending.

For CAN Jaguars, how easy are they to implement into the new system, or has there been no testing done with that yet?

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Originally Posted by Cecil (Post 1364940)

For CAN Jaguars, how easy are they to implement into the new system, or has there been no testing done with that yet?

We have them working natively in LabView on our 2013 test robot, integrated with the rest of the CAN bus (pneumatics module and new PDB). As of this writing we don't have them working with C++ yet but that is planned. If you look carefully at SpaceOsc's pictures you can see the CAN run from the roboRio to our first Jaguar, and from the last Jaguar to the pneumatics module (where it then goes over two twisted wires to connect to the new PDB and terminate there. Took a little finesseing of the 4P4C wires to plug into the new CAN connectors (which are push-in) but works fine.

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Originally Posted by vinnie (Post 1364836)

How good is the support for standard Linux programs, do you think it might be able to run ROS?

The most recent image I've tested is an older Angstrom distribution. In particular, it uses an older libc6 (2.11), which makes it a little difficult to use the most recent packages (many of which require 2.12), but I have successfully installed gdb, gcc, python and other packages with careful use of opkg install --nodeps. I have not tried installing ROS in particular, but there's no fundamental reason it can't be made to work even if the out-of-the-box packages don't.

For example, here's a tutorial on NI's website that installs PostgreSQL and uses it with LabVIEW on the Linux platform: https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-30308

Anybody heard any numbers on the cost of the new system or how the rollout will be handled next year?

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Originally Posted by rfolea (Post 1364969)

Anybody heard any numbers on the cost of the new system or how the rollout will be handled next year?

We haven't heard any solid cost numbers. They're projecting it to cost well below the current system.

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Originally Posted by rfolea (Post 1364969)

Anybody heard any numbers on the cost of the new system or how the rollout will be handled next year?

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Originally Posted by Tom Line (Post 1364974)

We haven't heard any solid cost numbers. They're projecting it to cost well below the current system.

Also, every team, rookie and veteran, gets a roboRIO (and I'd assume most of the other control system components) for free in the 2015 KOP.

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Originally Posted by Tom Line (Post 1364864)

Here is an overview of the new 2015 control system:

http://www.fightingpi.org/Resources/...ha/Alpha.shtml

Arohowk, please don't guess at answers. We are currently not using dLinks. We are using USB radios whose drivers reside on the RoboRIO and who don't require a boot-up like the current radio systems do.

The system will be on display on our 2013 Ultimate Ascent robot this weekend Waterford, and again at the State Championship. In addition, National Instruments reps are planning on coming up to do a LabVIEW seminar and an hour long seminar on the new control system at the State Championships Thursday morning as a part of our '1718 Presents' seminar series. We'll be releasing more info as States get closer.

Once the competition season ends we'll restart our Alpha testing and begin updating the web page with more information.

Please keep in mind the software is still VERY much in the development stage. When we met late last year, some of the languages still weren't completely functional. Take everything with a very large grain of salt: the same folks developing the Alpha hardware are also supporting the current FRC season. Don't expect much progress for a while.

Yeah. I was wondering what happened to those planned ASUS sticks.
So with this new USB stick, how do you get ethernet connections throughout the robot? Before there were 4 ports off the bridge, but now I don't know if there is a single one!
What is the range of the radio? Is it greater or lesser? I am wondering whether the switch to a USB dongle has any big significance other than a smaller footprint.
How robust is the new radio? Most USB sticks aren't very strong against sudden jerks and may end up randomly breaking!

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Originally Posted by yash101 (Post 1365081)

There is an ethernet port on the RoboRio. If you need to, you can include an ethernet hub on the robot. The plan is to move towards USB for stuff - for example, it's a lot easier to obtain cheap, good performing USB cameras than it is to get an ethernet one.

The range of the radio seems adequate - we haven't done any specific range testing, but it covers our build space and the entire field FIRST had set up during the Alpha Test weekend.

The radio is a typical USB dongle. We connected it through a USB extension cord, which let us attach the dongle with velcro to the same place we had the dlink. Since it's so lightweight, even with a hard hit to the robot there's really no force on the dongle itself. I don't recommend sticking it straight into the RoboRio and having it buried inside the robot!

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Originally Posted by Jon Stratis (Post 1365090)

Thanks.
I wonder if it would be legal to have an onboard cheap ethernet switch. Next year, I want to have a node based processing system with multiple computers, running a specific portion of the code. One ethernet port will probably not be enough ;). I guess the dongle will be hard to hit my a gamepiece but I'm still kinda skeptical because the ASUS router sitting in front of me has quite a poor build quality and crashes every 15 mins. Is the antenna a single plane or multiple axes? A plane antenna would mean the robot would lose communications when it turns a bit.
I am also wondering about the build quality of the roborio. The GPIO seems to be build into the main package. Have you ever had any problems with debris getting in the case and making it behave very wierd? That was one thing that happened quite often with the Digital Sidecar!
I am just wondering but how accurate are the current sensors in the PDB? Do you ever use them as an effective debug strategy for eradicating nasty shorts?
Thanks.
I think I just spammed you with questions ;)