Quote:
Originally Posted by pnitin
I think Long Can network wires can be problem but you have to understand what is "Long". CAN spec says 40 meters, does typical FRC robot have even 8 meter of CAN wire length?
CAN is differential signal so as long as you have twisted pair and proper termination resistor you are good for FRC use. if your network is in manufacturing shop floor then you are in totally different situation
|
As a mentor on a team that has been running CAN for a long time, I'd advise against the star topology for FRC. It might work but why risk it? Why give yourself the headache of dealing with terminating resistors on all the components?
There is another upside to daisy-chaining with CAN. It's forced us to invest in reliable connections between components or soldering the wires, which is designing for success rather than designing for failure, which is what you're trying to do with a star topology. The star topology makes a base assumption that you are trying to avoid a failure with a single component taking down the entire system.
Just my thoughts but we've been doing this for a while. I won't claim we have gotten it 100% right yet but I think our experience has given us a lot of insight.