[philso]

I feel that some of the lessons that team members learn when participating in FRC is to balance risk, to prioritize tasks and to choose what challenges to undertake.

The CAN architecture has been developed to work a certain way with a proven tolerance of limited variations, like stubs up to a 0.3 meters * on the transmission line. When implemented according to the recommendations, it works very well. If someone reading this thread decides to take a chance and implement a non-standard CAN network architecture, they are assuming the risk that they may get degraded performance that will probably take a lot of time and energy to sort out.

It is not likely that many FRC teams will have the equipment (and the experience to use it properly) to trouble-shoot a CAN network that is suffering from phenomena such as reflections. For most teams, developing a robot to "play the game well" in the short time given is a challenge that pushes them to the limits of their abilities. Should teams also take on the challenge of getting a non-standard CAN network configuration to work reliably or should they follow the general recommendations regarding how to set up their CAN network and focus on the robot?

* 0.3 meters = 11.81 inches. This is just a bit longer than twice the length of the CAN Bus wires on the motor controllers (5.5 inches). Maybe CTRE is trying to save us from ourselves?