Presentation about the 2016 control system
 

Hi Gang,

Attached is a presentation that I gave at the Washington DC FIRST workshop earlier in December. I hope you enjoy.

Regards,

Mike Anderson
FRC #116

Re: Presentation about the 2016 control system
 

Very thorough!

Minor nitpick, some of the Jaguar information in here is wrong:

If using CAN Jaguars with the 2015 system they can and should be wired directly to the CAN bus with the rest of the CAN devices. Ref: http://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/...he-2015-system

Re: Presentation about the 2016 control system -- UPDATED
 

Just going on what the folks at CTRE told me last season. They must have made an adjustment to the CAN format to be compatible. Nonetheless, given all of the options available in 2016, I would hope that teams have moved on from the Jags at this point. God knows 116 has some of the Jags and a bunch of Victor 884s & 888s. However, give the cost of the new MCs, it would be easier to get a new set than continue to screw with the old ones.

I'll make the change in the presentation to reflect the info.

Thanks!

Re: Presentation about the 2016 control system
 

Glad you are working to educate teams in your area.

Some further edits or clarifications for those that are reading this:
- On slide 7 the UART being 5V is a warning. However, the UART (on MXP port) is the connection to use with Arduino, Pi, etc. The warning is for the 9V RS-232.
- There is a new radio required this coming year (OM5P-AN).
- On slide 24, it is said that you need to connect CAN if you want current-related data. It is required to connect CAN to the PDP period. This is how battery voltage shows up on the DS and I believe a robot will not pass inspection without it.
- New CTRE magnetic encoder was part of the beta program. It plugs directly into the Talon SRX and can be used for both relative and absolute positioning simultaneously.

Re: Presentation about the 2016 control system -- UPDATE #2
 

Thanks for the updates. I'll put them in the presentation.

Mike

Re: Presentation about the 2016 control system
 

Definitely need to wire PDP to canbus to get it's current values, unless you plan on getting them from TalonSRX instead over CANbus (which is a bit more accurate).

DS batVoltage actually comes from the RIO. You can additionally read the PDP's report battery voltage through robot API and RIO-web-based config.

PDP required for inspect was true last season. Won't know for sure for next season until kickoff.

Re: Presentation about the 2016 control system
 

Also good catch on the Jags. You don't need a 2CAN to use Jags with roboRIO+CAN. The robotAPI was updated last year to use the onboard CANbus for Jags as well.

In other words, the differences in comms between RIO<=> Jag and RIO<=>TalonSRX is handled in software. Sorry Mike if that point wasn't communicated better. As much as I liked the 2CAN, we were very happy last year with integration of CANbus in the RIO (best for teams).

Re: Presentation about the 2016 control system
 

Thanks, Omar! I think I got all of that into update #2. Hopefully, this presentation will help teams understand all of the pieces come kick-off.

Mike