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Unread 09-05-2014, 18:13
Jefferson Jefferson is offline
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AKA: Jeff Clements
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Re: [FRC Blog] 2015 Control System and Kit of Parts Survey

Quote:
Originally Posted by magnets View Post
The roborio is only $435. That's really nice, but is this a once per year deal like the cRIO is?
I don't work for NI, but my understanding is: no. You will be able to buy as many as you want.

Quote:
Originally Posted by magnets View Post
The power distribution board at $200 is pretty ridiculous. The current monitoring features are great and all, but I don't think most teams will be taking advantage of them.
It's $11 more and it has data logging as well as current sensing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by magnets View Post
My biggest dislike is the lack of relay ports. We usually don't use pneumatics besides for shifting, so we never have a compressor on board. If we use one spike for shifting drive (so we don't have to buy a $90 board that is way more complicated than it needs to be), then we only have three spikes left for motors. We usually use at least that many.
I'm not sure if you'll be able to do this. Teams currently have to charge the pneumatics using the control system, even if the compressor isn't on the robot. I'm not sure if the current compressor object in WPILib will survive the upgrade, although you could always program your own with a relay and digital input.
I'm not sure how it's "way more complicated than it needs to be". It has power, pressure switch, and CAN bus inputs. And compressor and solenoid outputs. It's as dead simple as it can be.
And, you're talking about using $140 in spikes to avoid buying a $90 board that can power twice as many solenoids.

Quote:
Originally Posted by magnets View Post
This has the potential to be a really awesome control system, but these people really need to be more open with us. If they showed us what WPIlib and the driver station looked like now, then there wouldn't be such a shock in December, when we buy the systems, and we don't know what we're doing.
You'll not be shocked by the updates to either of these items. If you know what you are doing now, you'll know what you're doing with the new parts. If you have specific questions about anything, there are a lot of people on this board who have a spent some time Alpha testing. Feel free to ask.
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