Thread: Using a star configuation for Jaguars on CAN
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Unread 10-05-2010, 11:53
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Dale Dale is offline
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FRC #1540 (Flaming Chickens)
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Using a star configuation for Jaguars on CAN
This last season, we had a ton of problem with the CAN bus ... in particular with intermittent RJ10 connectors. We had best results with the Tyco connectors Luminary recommends but still there would be times when the whole robot would go down just because one CAN connector wasn't making contact quite to its liking. Unplug and re-insert the connector and it was happy again.

I know the CAN bus is really designed to be a bus with 100 ohm terminators at each end. For the length of bus most robots have, I'm wondering if it might be possible to come up with a star configuration instead. This would involve a a central hub which then distributes the signals to all the Jaguars, You wouldn't daisy chain the Jaguars in this case so the failure of one wouldn't bring the whole robot down.

Has anyone tried such a thing or have opinions about the chances of getting it to work? Perhaps someone would like to sell it as a product?
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