[boomergeek]

After significant trouble at BAE which we primarily chalked up to using 2CAN and seeing many CAN timeout messages during every match: For Boston this week, we had moved to PWM.

We also pulled a chain and isolated a tan Jaguar that would work in forward but not in reverse.

We moved our radio to a higher place on our robot.

Control worked perfectly through all qualifying matches and three quarter-final matches. HOORAY!

In the first semi-final match that we played, about 30 second in we lost complete control- we rebooted the robot from the driver station and regained control for the last bit of the match.

The Field Tech immediately came over and started to help us try to figure out the problem. His initial hunch was a bad power wire to the cRIO. I thanked him and told him we had rebooted from the DriverStation. At that point, he asked if we changed our software, which we had because of a change requested for autonomous. He then suggested to run a simulation match while we waited for the other semifinal match. We did: and it ran with no problems.
We visually inspected and yanked on the cRIO wiring with no impact.

We played the second match and the Field Tech stood next to us for the entire match. We again lost communication for 20 seconds. This time we did not attempt to reboot from the Driver Station and got control back more quickly. The Field Tech at that point was fairly confident that it was a power to the cRIO problem.

And he was exactly right!

After the match, in the lighted area of the pits, after wiggling the power connections to the cRIO for about a full 5 seconds: the cRIO lights blinked and it reset.

SPEND TIME GETTING YOUR cRIO POWER CONNECTIONS RIGHT and TEST them periodically!

My advice: Use Checklists rigorously!