[mbailey]

So, our robot control system from last year was working well and I wasn’t worried too much that our lead programmer had graduated and our computer geek mentor had to spend extra time at work and miss our build season – UNTIL, we wired the robot controller for this year and problems developed. I now have some questions and would appreciate any advice available:

1. Does the analogy bumper HAVE to be connected to cRIO for the control system to work? We assumed it was not needed but didn’t see battery voltage on Classmate. Once the analogy bumper was inserted and powered up (12V), the battery voltage appeared on Classmate. What else should we know about the analog bumper?!
2. What about the solenoid bumper? We have it wired at 24V and have used it to activate a solenoid for the pneumatics. Is it necessary to be plugged into the cRIO IF we were not using pneumatics?
3. How do you determine if cRIO is “fried” or is not working properly? We had wired the whole robot control board for this year and got a blinking robot status light at the digital sidecar. We disconnected everything except one speed controller (we’re using Victors) and still had a slow blink most of the time and an occasional fast-slow blink. Interestingly, the green LED on sidecar and the orange status light don’t blink at the same frequency -- does that indicate the La-Lb jumper is missing? By the way, the Victor “trouble light” is orange (no signal).
4. Is there a photo available (or simple directions) for wiring the robot control?
5. Is there an explanation of the purpose(s) of the cRIO connections? – I see the “pin-out” diagram, but remember that I am not a control expert and most of the time the pin-out doesn’t tell me much!
6. Is there a listing of the lights (above the DIP switches) on the cRIO and which should be on/off when?!