Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

yea i don't think we have any problems yet >.<

looking forward to your open house on thursday? ^^

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

Well as far as not being able to test & waiting for new radios the teams that know this problem already and who have / haven't decided to seek the IFI gods there is still hope for them. One of which is kinda lengthy - Tether the robot (and too be on the careful side if you choose to tether you robot make sure that you do not secure the tether cable competely If the robot should suddenly lose control make sure the tether cable is unscrewed from the OI or the RC side so that the plug comes out w/o destroying the tether port on either unit. Unless of course you put chocks under it then it isn't as lengthy & you can secure the tether cable if you wish.) The other is to use the 2006 Radios which work perfectly with this years OI & RC. Of course these are temporary solutions and will probably need to resolve whatever issues with their radios while the robot has been shipped and hopefully have the newer / re-built radios in time for their 1st. regional.

Like many have said and I will repeat - IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR RADIOS TRY PLACING IT AWAY FROM THE METAL CHASSIS & ANY MOTORS, TETHER YOUR ROBOT TO MAKE SURE THAT IT'S ONLY A PROBLEM WITH THE RX/TX ON WIRELESS AND NOT ON A DIRECT CONNECT LEVEL, IF IT'S A PROBLEM WITH THE ROBOT BEING WIRELESS THEN USE THE 2006 RADIO MODEMS, IF PROBLEM IMPROVES WITH THE 2006 RADIO MODEMS THEN CONTACT IFI AND GET A RMA AND SHIP THE 2007 RADIO MODEMS BACK SO THEY CAN REPAIR / REPLACE THEM AS NECESSARY (MAKE SURE YOU ARE VERY THOROUGH WHEN REPORTING THE PROBLEM OTHER WISE THEY WILL FLOW CHART YOU TO DEATH. THE MORE THOROUGH YOU ARE THE LESS QUESTIONS YOU WILL NEED TO ANSWER THE QUICKER YOU CAN OBTAIN AN RMA#. AND AS AL S. HAS SAID MANY TIMES CHECK YOUR WIRING VERY CAREFULLY, WE'RE ALL HUMAN AND MAKE MISTAKES VERY EASILY ESPICIALLY UNDER PRESSURE.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

WE were successful at correcting the problem that we were having last night..

Here is what we did:

1). We moved the antenna on the robot so that it is now as high as we could get it and made sure the antenna itself was totally vertical (perpendicular to the track).

2). The antenna unit was mounted to a metal vertical mast on our robot so we attached an "L" bracket to this metal mast and a piece of 1/2" plywood and attached the antenna to the plywood. The antenna is also cable tied to the plywood with a small piece of foam to cushion it and to keep it from touching metal.

3). We re-routed the data cable from the RC unit on the robot to the antenna unit so that is was not near any motors, victors or spikes.

With these three things we did not have one drop out condition all night long...

What a relief it is to clear that problem up... only a few more other problems to figure out.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

You know what burns me more then anything is that IFI is 1) very doubtful of our problem and that we the programmers and team members are imagining things when the RC system fails for whatever reason, 2) forcing us to build around a problem in which they caused.

Basically this is what they are doing: We IFI have chosen to upgrade the hardware on the Radio Modems to make it bigger and much more harder to mount. You have to mount our radios in such away that it is put in danger of breaking if you don't mount it to our guide lines you will suffer signal degradation. What ever problems you come across are through your own fault and not of ours even though we've tested unsuccessfully the new radios at an offseason event. We will however allow you to send your radios to us for repair / adjustment or replacement if you can correctly identify the problems you are having.

It's bad enough we have to design a robot within 6 weeks to FIRST specs. Now we have to do it to IFI specs to. I don't like this one bit but hey if anyone thinks otherwise then please share your opinion.

BTW got my teams radios back but don't have any time to test them. Much to Much work left to get done. I guess we'll find out come the first regional. :ahh:

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

Just an update from us. We've mounted this thing in the best possible way you could imagine. It's high, its amost 1' away from any metal ( mounted to a plastic panel up in the air. It's vertical and the wires route clearly away from everything that could cause interference. AND WE STILL HAVE DROPOUTS. Not as many but they happen every minute or so, for a second or 2. I'm convinced there's nothing you can do to make these things work properly. They are definitely defective and poorly designed. When I get to our regional the first thing I will do is ask if we can use the 06 radios.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

Dan,

First of all, let me say that I respect your opinion and your posts have always had merit. I am going to vent a bit and I apologize for using you as a target but feel it better you than using a student or someone less experienced.

Now to the meat of it:

If you follow that path, you will certainly fail.

Let's assume that the 06 radios work better and that the 07 radios have a systemic problem. If you were running the competition and a number of teams brought the 06 radios and petitioned to have them allowed, would you allow it? Would it be fair to the teams who did not bring 06's? How about the rookies who can not get 06's?

Answer: You could not allow the 06 radios to be used because everyone waited too long to complain!

I looked on the IFI forum today and found only 3 posts about radios not working since the kickoff. Let's assume another 10 teams called on the phone. This is only 13 teams out of 1307 having a problem as far as they know. There are a lot of companies out there which would love a 0.1% return rate.

Your team (and everyone else who is having problems), MUST make this issue clear to both FIRST and to IFI.

$@#$@#$@#$@#$@#ing and moaning on CD will not resolve the problem.

OK. I'm done now and, once again, I'd like to apologize for singling you out. Please forgive me...

Mike

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

Our team was one of the first to report problems to IFI, reportedly the 5th to contact IFI and the 3rd to return radios for evaluation. IFI gave them a once over, but didn't really find anything wrong.

Testing since their return 2-3 weeks ago, shows an improvment, but not resolution, and I have continued to communicate that message to IFI with hopes that they would be able to provide a solution.

In all other areas, my contact with IFI has been a positive one, and I think that they've responded to my requests in a very reasonable and timely manner, so when it comes to the problem with the radios, I've given them the benefit of the doubt, and for the most part I still do.

Recognizing that we are down to the wire here, and still don't have a viable solution in hand, on Thursday I once again put the question to IFI if they wanted to RMA our existing radios again, or if they wanted to swap them out with others, and also indicated that I felt it was time to elevate this issue to FIRST's attention, and the response was that they'd pass the request up the food chain.

On Thursday afternoon, I sent an e-mail to FIRST's team contact e-mail found here and outlined our ongoing problems with the radios and that we were not receiving a solution to this problem from IFI. I ended by suggesting that the regional events make use of 2006 and prior year's radios, and that all non-rookie teams bring old/spare radios to provide to the 2007 rookies.

I have also communicated this same information and request to the regional FIRST contact's to pass along to FIRST as well.

So clearly I concur with the thurst of Mike's input here in that any team that is continuing to experience a radio communication problem, that has already worked with IFI and not yet obtained a satisfactory solution, that it is probably time to make certain that FIRST hears your concerns. Ultimately it is their call as to how to fairly address the problem.

There seem to be many teams reporting success with their radios, so clearly they will have an additional advantage over teams such as ours.

Use the FIRST e-mail address in the link I posted above to make your concerns known. You can also find FIRST regional contact information on this webpage.

Please keep your comments and concerns constructive an professional, and please refrain from bashing IFI. The reason for the change in the radios was outside of their control, and while I don't factually know the timetable they had to work with, I suspect it was quite short.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

1902 is having these problems. It wasn't seen until we placed the radios in a real robot, before we tested in a VEX like setup.

We will send an email to IFI also.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

We DID contact IFI, they kindly directed us to the forum and said that should fix it, have a nice day. In other words we got that same sentiment I'm seeing other people recieved, its not our equipment its how your using it. And that was about 2 weeks ago.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

We didn't see the problem until we tested heavily this week. I think a lot of teams are having the problem but just don't see it yet.

Kind of scary thinking your bot can stop at anytime.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

(I haven't gone through most of this thread.)

We can confirm that our cellular phones are interfering the radio communication between our OI and RC. It seems to reset or otherwise turn off the OI completely -- our robot stops responding to commands, the LEDs on our OI turn off and things are otherwise completely useless.

Is this a problem with our radios or is this a generic defect with the new IFI radios?

Thanks. :)

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

While the radio issues are frustrating, please understand one thing. IFI didn't "choose" to upgrade anything. The guts of the old radios are obsolete. In fact, so obsolete that the only thing to do was redesign. It just wasn't possible to create another 1300 sets of the old ones. Why are they so big? That's what it took to try and make the right thing happen. IFI had a significant challenge in making the new radios work. They were testing prototypes as early as July 2006 in competition conditions and were still testing during offseason competition in November 2006.

This is not a situation IFI created, but rather a huge challenge they they have been working like crazy to overcome. The solutions they are providing are the best that currently exist.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

Lets all remember that every team is under different circumstances. Some teams havent reported issues because they didnt have a robot until maybe very recently, enough for them to test.
We were fortunate to have finished a little earlier, thus being the 1st ones to start this thread and report it. Im sure teams are more worried about other bigger things such as building a robot.
For example, we just finally put the diagnostic light on and the solid state relay doesnt work. Then we find out that some teams got the wrong one, which is the case for our team. In addition, we find more info on other threads.
People wont search some threads if there is no problem/challenges to search questions for.:D

By the way, will the competition have spares? We participate the 1st weekend of competitions already!

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

I think we have found a correlation between this and the use of cell phones, especially if you are getting a call or on the phone. Today I got several phone calls while right near the robot as which point RC and OI lost communication. coincidence? I don't think so though, I am not 100%. I'm no engineer or RF expert but thats what I have been able to observe.

Re: does anyone have OI and RC radio issues
 

We had an open house today. Students have reported occasional communication glitches over the past few weeks, but when there were a couple dozen spectators gathered around the field, things got very squirrely. After the guests moved away, all was well again. My guess at the time was that it was all the cell phones in people's pockets causing interference.