[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Not quite true, although in principle I agree.

On the practice field teams must unplug their DLink and replace it with the Practice field DLink.

There is one other time that it is important for teams to unplug the cRIO from the DLink -- if you are in the finals and are tethering the robot to prepare it for the next match of the finals (for example, performing a system check or compressing air to have full tanks for the next match).

We ran into this problem at the Week Zero Scrimmage, so we were ready for the problem during the GSR finals. During the finals, the same teams are on the field in consecutive matches, so the field access point is still configured to communicate with the teams that were just on the field. Accordingly, as soon as the Driver Station is connected to the DLink, the DS enters the "FMS Connected" mode, forcing the robot into a disabled state and prohibiting "tethered" control.

If you find yourself in the final matches and need to tether the robot in between matches to add air to the tanks or perform any system checks, you'll want to connect the DS directly to the cRIO without going through the DLink, in order to avoid the FMS control.