Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

I'm going to check that either tonight or thursday when I'm working on our test bot (I'll slip in the 2006 controller).

I don't, since we didn't notice the 8.2V and "failing bot" issues (and didn't have a reason to look for them) during testing (we were running motors and test chassis systems by the end of week 2), and spent just about 100 hours running variations of autonomous plays without a problem. Something is subtley different about the competition environment that makes everything worse.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

There is an encrypted serial link between the OI and the Arena Controller; could it be bogging down the OI in certain (rare) circumstances?

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

Someone has already stated that they can invoke the "8.2 mode" using the pre-compiled gyro code from my website. As this code was compiled with 2.44, I don't think 2.44 is the cure.

My guess is that most teams aren't having a problem, and that something really low-level and sinister is the root of the problem. I'm also using a hand-built early beta version of the robot controller, which may be a contributing factor.

-Kevin

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

IFI appears to be working on this, and has sent me an updated linker script which I am going to test to see if this corrects the issue. I'll let you know how testing turns out.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

Can those folks who are having problems please try building your code with the attached 18f8722beta.lkr link script and testing your code. If you still have problems, then try the attached 18f8722_2.44.lkr script and test again. Please report back here with the outcome.

-Kevin

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

We were running our practice robot tonight and ran into a very similar problem. In the middle of running the robot manually, the inputs stopped working and the OI displayed 8.6v. After cycling power on the robot, it worked fine. Could this be another manifestation of this issue? We are using the 2005 controller and easyC.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

I dont have our 2006 controller or any parts with me. But anyone who had this issue please post what you find after using this new linker script.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

I breadboarded up our 2006 RC, and now I'm in the frustrating situation that I can't duplicate the error, even using the exact same .hex files as in the pits at BAE. So I couldn't get the error to show up, so I can't tell if 18f8722beta.lkr is doing anything. Anyone yet found a highly reliable way to duplicate this? (very frustrating, since it was showing the error reliably in the pit)

As for 18f8722_2.44.lkr, if you try to use it as provided, you get a "Error - section '_entry_scn' type is non-overlay and absolute but occurs in more than one input file" from the linker, which requires that you comment out the first "FILE" line in the .lkr script. After that, IFI Loader won't upload it, giving an "invalid address : 0x20 (Correct Range: 0x800-0x7fff)" error.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

Okay, I see the problem with the file. If you can, try the 18f8722beta.lkr script.

-Kevin

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

Well programmers, there is upshot to this. For once there is a programming problem that might not be our fault!

What leads people to think that this is a problem with the linker script? It seems to me like there is a good chance this could be a master proc problem.

Its interesting to note that 8.2/8.3 volts is very near 127 when you convert it using that little forumula. Is it possible that the RC and OI are somehow loosing synchronization and reading the wrong parts of the packets? Maybie some structure or array is being manipulated incorrectly?

Make sure you are using the newest version of IFI loader. I had some bizarre similar problems from using an old version. I have also had weird errors from USB->serial converters. Rule these things out first.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

Script seems to work fine (produces hex files that seem to work), but since I currently haven't been able to duplicate the bug then I can't tell if it cures it.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

I haven't been able to recreate the problem using the older IFI loader (but all the code I've used so far, even when I was still using trig functions, still fit in bank 0).

And our laptop is still old enough to have a serial port...

But yes, both of these are worth ruling out.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

I highly doubt it's encrypted... why would it be? Teams gain nothing from somehow monitoring it.. And how many teams would actually have a chance to? It requires access to the field, when it's fully set up and running.

Although, the fact that the Master processor is now communcating with the radio and arena controller may have something to do with it.. but this would have shown up last year if this were the case.

Does anyone know if the master processor was upgraded too? Or is it still an 8520? If its the 8772, why haven't we seen another release of the firmware after the new IFI libraries were released?

I somehow doubt that the user processor is at fault here.. so the linker script is worthless.

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

It is still an 8520, and I was wondering the same thing about the firmware.
That was my thought too, especially since I was able to get the same "bug" to appear on the 2004 RC. I am thinking it might occur when the user processor "confuses" the master processor by sending bad data because of interrupts interfering with PutData(). Just a guess. :)

EDIT:
DeviceNull, I did some snooping and I think you may be right about the encryption, although there's no way to be absolutely sure. There sure are a lot of unsubstatiated rumors about that AC to RC link floating around! ;)

Re: The 8.2 (or 8.3) Battery Voltage Bug
 

We can't check for the bug with the beta loader on our robot controller
as our robot is in the crate heading from Portland to SanJose.
I did try building the hex file with the beta <linker> script, however, and
note that there is a large number of differences in the hex file, relative
to the one generated prior to copying the beta <linker> into place.
If IFI fixed a bug in the linker script with their change, our code was
stepping on this bug in lots of places.

We will learn the score, for sure, during the practice day at the
SanJose regional...

Eugene