Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex.q
In regards to CAN, I believe we tested it on a test board that the programmers were using, but not on the actual robot yet. Can you elaborate on what we should waatch out for with the CAN?
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We had lots of issues with the CAN bus just completely locking up. In other words, all of the motors on CAN wouldn't function. During the 2011 build season we tested the individual motors on CAN, but we only tested the entire system on the last build day. There were indications of a problem prior to bagging the robot, but major issues at the regional. The robot would just freeze. By switching the drive motors to PWM, we could still drive, but our arm (on CAN) would lock up. Putting delays between the calls to the arm helped, but hurt our controls. We also discovered noise on the arm's potentiometer was another cause of the CAN bus locking up.
Other teams may have had better success and can tell you how to avoid the problems we had.