Re: pic: The new driver station
 

Sorry for my lack of knowledge, but what would the pins allow you to do? What's the advantage to having them?

And happy for turning a bot into an FPS sim!

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

These pins allow teams to make their own custom buttons to control robot functions.

There are eight digital inputs, eight digital outputs, as well as four analog inputs.

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

My god, that new driver station is... So, pretty...


Pretty...

Great info!

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

Oh right, that makes sense. So this eliminates the need to making your own ghetto port or anything? What kinda of connection dealys are we gonna have to put together to put the switches/buttons/what-have-you onto the pins?

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

Nothing special :) You can just use the same standard 3-pin connector used for PWM cables.

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

That's what I figured, and those don't take that long to wire. So each connection needs the ground, the 5v supply and the signal. I'm slowly learning this stuff! Now if only I could program better... =P

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

If this really does cut down on my soldering of DB-15 connectors I will be very, very happy.

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

Couldn't agree more!

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

I love the possibilities the new control system offers us as drivers and operators. Also it seems that the coach will be able to monitor the robot's vitals during the match and relay them to the drive team. I think I'm gonna go Joystick shopping sometime soon for some cool ones. Maybe I'll get some of the retro-ish Flightsticks but, the new ones that are usb.

Possibly the thing I am most excited about is the ease of making custom controls with the easy pin-outs. I guess if anyone can fill all of the pins up they can get a gameport to usb converter and custom pin that.

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

As opposed to 16 digital inputs, 16 analog inputs, and 8 LED digital outputs on the old system.

I like the ease of connectivity. I dislike losing so many OI I/O points - especially the digital inputs. This may limit what we can do on the button box. You can never have enough pushbuttons, rocker, and toggle switches. We often wire spares up to support future use applications developed as the season progresses.

Switching the joysticks over to USB will help offload some of what we used to wire to the digital and analog inputs, but I still feel we'll be a bit lacking for button box I/O.

However, perhaps we can use a laptop keyboard to take up the slack - who wants to create some custom keyboard overlays for FIRST robots? That would be kinda fun.

In the end, though, I'd rather just rely upon the simple pushbuttons and switches wired to the digital in's - tradition is a good thing, as Bill Gates may decide to intervene and not let us operate our "laptop button box". That would not be fun - Bad, Bill, bad!

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

Awesome, looks very cool, hope it works as good, as it looks, because it looks very fancy.

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

You could always pick up a gameport to USB converter at the RadioShack or simiar and use that to provide the additional inputs you want. The loss of LED outputs is harder to counter though... no more HUDs, I guess.

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

Presuming the hardware works as advertised out of the gate, with no flaky behaviour (Canadian in honour of 1114 celebratory week)....

I'm thinking I'll create a 15-pin D-SUB to PWM-style breakout harness for the analog ins just so I can still go old school in the event of any "newfangled geewhiz" USB flakiness. A tribute to the past.

No I'm not very trusting. Always have a backup plan....

I wonder how much current the 8 digital outputs can drive? What would you use them for otherwise?

Re: pic: The new driver station
 

I don't know about the digital outputs, but standard USB specifications state that each port must be capable of supporting at least 100 mA of current, with the option to sink as much as 500 mA. Any unused USB ports, with the addition of some transistors on the digital outputs, should provide enough power for other things.