Just got back from Championships. Had a GREAT time! Was a huge bummer to lose the rubber match and not have 3 on 3. That's the only way I want to win or to lose - with everyone at full strength!
Here's what happened...
1) Never lost comm the whole event.
2) First playoff match our alliance captain was in the Red 1 station and had intermittent comm during their match. Cost us the match 12 to 9.
2) Second playoff match everyone ran and we won it 12 to 8 I think.
3) Third playoff match we're in Red 1.
- Robot works fine in systems check right before putting it on the field (with a tether of course).
- We power up on the field, go to the driver station, everyone gets comm but our station (R1).
- I run out onto the field and the FTA joins me. We look at the radio and it has Power and Ethernet but no Data/Activity.
- He says to recycle the radio or robot. I ask which he wants and he says do the whole robot. I do so and walk back to the Driver Station.
- Everything comes up fine. We run auton, never "hit" anything or any bumps or anything but notice it ends it's auton run by just "coasting" to a stop (not normal). We look down and see no comm!
- FTA runs over to our station and resets something but it doesn't come back.
- After the match we all look and again, Power, Ethernet, no Data Activity to the field radio.
- FTA says he's seen a lot of radios just crapping out and maybe that happened to ours even though it comes back the next time. No recourse, we're done for the championships. Blech.
I'm going to run that same radio (we have two) back at the school for a few weeks and see if it ever loses comm again. We'll run it literally for dozens of hours and if it never loses comm again, I have to believe it's a flakey field issue. If it fails, then I'll swap in the backup radio and see how that goes.
BTW, our entire electrical system is on thick lexan, nothing is grounded to the frame, everything is shielded, zip tied and super clean. I really, really doubt it's a wiring fault. We did check multiple times as part of our pre-inspection checklist for all 4 events we've been to including Championship and nothing is connected to ground. Also, our power cable to our radio is very securely taped to the radio. You can not possibly remove it without taking a 2" wide piece of tape wrapped around it from the top to the bottom of the radio. It cannot shake or jiggle loose. Same for the ethernet.
If you all have any suggestions for other diags to do, we'll give them a run when we get it back in a couple weeks. Would be great to track this down as it cost us huge.
Thanks!
John