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Originally Posted by Matt Krass
I've transplanted my comments from the other thread here as well:
The old control system had a back up battery (7.2V) that was added specifically to prevent motors from browning out the controller and radio. The boost converter on the PD board we have now does a pretty good job of protecting the controller from blackouts.
If you meant just to have them connected to separate power so you can turn off one without the other, then just use a separate battery and PD board to run the controls and tie the negatives together.
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I'm suggesting this system wide basically. So that everything with control logic (including the Jaguars and Victors) can have that logic powered up from a separate source from the one that powers the motors.
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You can do this by monitoring the wi-fi signal strength and ping latency, but those aren't great indicators, but if we're going to be stuck so many layers away from the actual radio hardware, we don't have any accurate link integrity data.
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Actually I'd just like packet statistics for the control system. Especially if there's a laptop on the robot it's quite doable. You don't need to go quite to the point of a whole WireShark packet sniffer, but you could at least tag the types and quantities of packets sent and received that would be a great help.
Speaking of which I'd like a real time clock in the control system please, regardless of the presence of the laptop (epoch time is fine and it doesn't need to be from 1970 like in Unix).
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The 2005 breaker board had a serial port on it that would tell the controller about breakers that popped, it was pretty useful. I've heard rumors the current PD board was supposed to have that, but it didn't make the cut. I suspect the people making the decision underestimated just how useful that data is.
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Really would like to have confirmation of the magnitude of the current that did the tripping. I realize this adds weight, so as I originally planned and did these could be modular. I think they are most important on drive systems and other places where occasional overloads might happen and get misdiagnosed.
In point of fact someone will point out that a DMM can do this (but slower) or an oscilloscope with a current probe can do this, faster but much heavier. I'm looking for the compromise. Something light enough for competition, approved for competition, but removable for those that don't want it. Like the suggestion I gave for reverse voltage protection on the Jaguars.