Re: Who thinks the IR board's operational characteristics leave much to be desired?
 

We have found our IR very reliable, once we got the remote we had programmed to a different setting(before we were having problems programming one button, less likely four, then once solved that problem we had no problem programming the IR and using it, it has good range and everything

Re: Who thinks the IR board's operational characteristics leave much to be desired?
 

The IR board, like every thing else, is part of the game challenge. If you reverse the power it fries like a few other IFI parts. Avoiding this by being careful, or modifying the board with a diode, is up to you.

The "brown out" problem is one of those unpredictable unfortunate things, leading to more game challenge that we counted on, but it is still quite surmountable. We will try Kevin's brownout fix as soon as we get access to the robot again.

I would like to suggest that those teams who have succeeded in reloading the IR board code show up at your event with a sign that reads "IR boards reloaded here." We will be at Portland, and San Jose with our PIC programmer. Make sure that you bring the standard hex file and the one modified according to Kevin's directions. The other teams counting on their IR boards will appreciate it.

Eugene

Re: Who thinks the IR board's operational characteristics leave much to be desired?
 

Our IR board stopped working shortly after being mounted on our robot. I figured it was having the brown-out problem so we tried to reprogram it with no success. Reading the device revealled a bunch of emptyness. Then I checked the regulator and it was outputting 6 volts. I don't know if that wrecked the PIC or not, but it wouldn't work. The team decided that the IR isn't worth the effort due to the high probability of IR interference during the matches. We are going with an alternative means of communication.

Re: Who thinks the IR board's operational characteristics leave much to be desired?
 

If you don't like the IR board, don't use it.

We have been using a PIC16f627a with a PNA4602M IR receiver and about six lines of Pic Basic Pro code to decipher the Sony IR protocol for the past seven years as part of a mini-sumo robotics project. There is absolutely NO magic in reading an IR remote control signal... this board just makes it easier. At least until you hook up the power supply backwards.

It's a bit more of a challenge to program the IR routine in C than Basic, but there is no reason you couldn't just hook the Vishay sensor (or a PNA4602M) up directly to a digital I/O port on the RC and write your own code to decipher the signal.

And if you have a specific suggestion on how the board can be improved (yes! the diode would be a great improvement!) then make the suggestion.

Jason

Re: Who thinks the IR board's operational characteristics leave much to be desired?
 

Excellent idea! A link to the code can be found here :D.

-Kevin

Re: Who thinks the IR board's operational characteristics leave much to be desired?
 

Ours worked before the ship date, but for some reason, it wouldn't pick up the signal at the regional, even when I held it five inches away. It may be because there were some components in the way. I ended up making hybrid mode completely autonomous.

Re: Who thinks the IR board's operational characteristics leave much to be desired?
 

There have been many issues with the FIRST KOP IR board, but we were successful in getting it to work on the Chief Delphi robot. We scored three times during the hybrid period at the Great Lakes Regional in Ypsilanti, Michigan for a total of 24 points. We missed two chances to score because of robot misalignment so the opportunity to score was 5 times.

I will be delivering a presentation about how we used the FIRST KOP IR board at Atlanta during the 2008 Conferences. I am scheduled for 1 pm on Thursday. Presentation title is "Using the VEX robot system to prototype the autonomous operation of a FRC/FTC robot" . I think of it as "How we got the KOP FIRST IR board to work on the VEX robot and then the FRC robot" but that title doesn't really sell.

If you would like a powerpoint copy of the presentation, after April 17, when it will be completed, please shoot me an email at marccenter@inbox.com
:D