[ahartnet]

I think we were finally able to find and address the issue today.

The rio was definitely doing a full reset (all lights off, when power came back on, the rio would have the status light orange during it's POST, etc). I don't think the radio was resetting (typically) because I would only say two solid lights (momentarily) and I think when the radio reboots, you'll get three solid lights (momentarily).

Things that we did in order (all things that may have contributed):
1) Replaced the main switch (testing/flicking/shaking/tapping couldn't cause a failure, but was one of the few remaining components not replaced)
2) Replaced the 10 Amp fuse. It was one of the first things that I started wiggling this past weekend, but maybe the vibe loads were in a different direction than how I would wiggle it.
3) restrip a CAN cable that only had a couple of wire strands
4) Test run - still lose comm
5) Replace cable from battery to main switch
6) Add some mounts to reduce the vibration of the electronics board (it's mounted on some fairly thin lexan that could bounce significantly. It snapped near one of the mounting points which allowed more vibration on the side with the rio
7) Test run - drive without loss of comms for a while
8) Practicing - lost comms once, but we've decided that was likely due to a loss connection on that particular battery rather than anything on the robot anymore.

So I don't know if it's due to the battery cable or due to reducing the vibration that we're working better now. If it's just due to stiffening up the electronics board, I'm worried we're still just hiding an issue - but I suppose I don't know what kind of shock & vibe loads the rio is designed to with stand. I'm sure it's designed for more impact loads so maybe for some reason the bigger oscillations we were getting with a floppier than designed electronics board was causing an issue? Or maybe the strain relief we added wasn't enough. Either way, we're glad to have a running robot again.

We did get a lot of dropped packets. but that may be normal in our school setting, I haven't looked closely at that before (attached for reference).