View Single Post
  #27   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 20-09-2008, 16:09
Kevin Sevcik's Avatar
Kevin Sevcik Kevin Sevcik is offline
(Insert witty comment here)
FRC #0057 (The Leopards)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Rookie Year: 1998
Location: Houston, Texas
Posts: 3,758
Kevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via AIM to Kevin Sevcik Send a message via Yahoo to Kevin Sevcik
Re: Nearly Officially Official: cRIO Control System To Be Reused

What distresses me most about moving to the cRIO and not recieving a new system every year is the sheer amount of abuse teams often put their control systems through. Yes, I know, 4 foot drops onto concrete and all that jazz. I realized it's a hardened industrial controller meant to stand up to some pretty harsh environments. But I don't think it's actually design to withstand people intentionally trying to damage it, as so often happens with our rookies.

I'm seriously doubting that the cRIO is going to fair any better than the IFI controller did if a robot runs away at full speed with a tether cord attached to it. Nor do I think it will react well to metal shavings inside the case when the mechanical team is doing something while the cRIO isn't properly sealed. I can think of a dozen ways for the thing to get damaged, and extending its service life over several years isn't going to help. As for all the sidecars and bumpers and such.... Well I think their names were aptly chosen. So while it's a good policy to not trash things that don't need to be, things get trashed quite often in our competitions. Our robots are typically designed for ridiculousy short service lives and then horribly abused during said life. A semi-inexpensive controller that's replaceable seems to fit right in. If anyone in the thread competes in BEST, they already know the beating high school students can put on electronics reusing them year after year.
__________________
The difficult we do today; the impossible we do tomorrow. Miracles by appointment only.

Lone Star Regional Troubleshooter
Reply With Quote