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Unread 08-03-2010, 12:51
Mark McLeod's Avatar
Mark McLeod Mark McLeod is offline
Just Itinerant
AKA: Hey dad...Father...MARK
FRC #0358 (Robotic Eagles)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Rookie Year: 2002
Location: Hauppauge, Long Island, NY
Posts: 8,800
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Re: Classmate Static Discharge Susceptibility

Similar symptoms I saw this weekend were tracable to under-powered USB devices. All Comms are good, but the robot doesn't respond to the driver controls.

These are the USB mistakes I saw teams making:
  • If you are using the PSOC it is usually the biggest power-hog. That must be plugged directly into the Classmate.
  • The USB hub should be plugged into the other Classmate USB connector and the joysticks into that.
  • If you have a real power-hungry game controller - lights/vibrate/etc. - that needs to be plugged directly into the Classmate too. So you may have to choose between the PSOC and any fancy game controller.
  • The Stop switch they gave us in the KOP is NOT used at competition. Unplug the power drain to run those color changing LEDs.
It seems the hub is a major failure point and it's difficult to predict if a team will have trouble with it or not. Bring a different model to competition as a safety backup and be mentally prepared to repatch your USB connections. Face it, you'll have nothing better to do if your robot is non-functional...
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Last edited by Mark McLeod : 09-03-2010 at 11:04.
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