Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

I learned many years ago never to underestimate the abilities of a team of high school students and engineers working together.

The 'breaking expensive things' is an added bonus. :)

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

Screwing in program cables and then running autonomous... oh wait, no more serial cables :D

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

The mechanical impact I know won't kill it unless you go at the plug-in module with a jackhammer.

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

In Atlanta they were careful when doing drop demonstrations not to drop the cRIO on the exposed DB connectors. Broken and bent pins, especially when the bumpers for the .1" pin header conversions are attached, will be a not uncommon occurrance.
The other sides of the cRIO are pretty solid.

Never underestimate the power of a robot to gut itself...:)

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

The datasheet is kind of irritating in that regard. It says six different directions. One would imagine it means all six sides of the module including the side with pins.

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

The FIRST IFI controller retails for ~ $400
The NI cRio retails for $3900 without modules

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

Actually I was basing my statement on the RC+OI+2 Radio Bundle... which is over $1100 plus some minor additional items which do not contribute a major cost factor.

I was thus assuming:

1. The cRio's cost will be greatly reduced for FIRST teams
2. The IFI controller's cost is not greatly reduced for teams
3. The cRio kit price includes the driver station and router(/whatever they stick on there)

These assumptions may not be true but if they all are (and that is not so far fetched in my opinion... then the price of the cRio will not be much much more than that of the IFI RC. even a $2000 price tag would not deter me from trying to get a new one each year. at least for the first 3-5 years. (by then the controller probably will be changed or updated anyway).

-Leav

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

Where are you getting $3900 for the NI cRIO? I looked through the NI website, and found:
Integrated 400 MHz Real-Time Controller and 2M Gate FPGA for $2999.00
32 Channel Digital I/O module for $349.00
32 Channel Analog Input module for $799.00
8-Channel Relay, 60 VDC/30 Vrms, 750 mA (Relay Outputs) $299.00
As for the Pulse Generation... I guess we use the Digital I/O...

I'm also being generous on the ports, there are much less in the actual system.

Add this up and you get $4446.00 total, and all of these are modules, so if any single part breaks, you can replace it... and also, the FIRST Modules should be much cheaper, or will be made cheaper to FIRST teams. <-Talk about a run-on sentence...

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

I don't think the 907Xs (which is what the FIRST controller is based on) have heat sinks, only the ones with the reconfigurable chassis have the huge heatsink.

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

Oops, my bad... I edited out a part after I found the integrated systems and forgot to take that part out... I'll fix it right now.

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

I'm glad to see that not everyone was fooled into thinking the cRIO is indestructible. They certainly aren't. Each of these methods has a decent chance of damaging the fundamental monolithic backplane, and that will be a somewhat expensive lesson to learn. Rugged != Indestructible.

Greg McKaskle

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

This will pose an interesting problem to teams who like to build 2 bots every year.

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

Oops, my bad. I was going off of something else I read. I should check those facts first <SG>

From the looks of it, we will be using the DIO ports to generate PWM signals (Gosh, I hope there is no latency in the bus).

Anyways, The NI page shows a 30% discount for 100+ unit sales ... I wonder if FIRST will setup an account so that all FIRST teams will get at least this (if not more) discount.

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

I imagine that the discount to FIRST teams will be much greater, preferably just the cost of parts with maybe $100 in revenue. There can't be $3000 worth of stuff in a little box, my cheapo dell desktop computer was only $450 or so, and has a lot more stuff with it, unless I'm missing something really big...

Re: Future use of cRIO?
 

From the looks of the digital side car, all PWM outs are connected to a chip labeled U2, so that should be the final stage of the PWM generation (or it could just be a buffer). What signals the FPGA and DIO modules send to drive that IC, I am not sure.