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  #16   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 02-07-2002, 12:22
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The blinking value is set in the code, the solid value is fixed...I don't remember exactly what it's set at, but you are correct in saying that once it drops below the "keep LED on" point, it will not turn the LED back off without resetting the Robot Controller(on the robot, not from the OI)
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Unread 02-07-2002, 12:32
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as i remember from my teams tests, we had found that when the voltage drops below 9 volts the low battery light comes on (this is default for it) and stays on (as soon as it drops below 9 it will turn on and it will stay on until you robot reset)... when it gets below 8 as told to me by one of our electrical engineers the radio controller doesnt have enough power to function so the no data/radio signal led comes on (this one is an orange light). on our prototype this last year, which we used for driver practice, we would run our batteries down as far as they would go before the robot started to 'spaz' (not function properly or at all). we would find that the no data/radio signal light was on most every time and the battery voltage was usually around 8 or 9 (sometimes even 10). we would then give the robot a full reset and see how much longer we could run the battery because we often only had a couple batteries to work with for our few hour driving practice so we had to make them last. now as i remember right, sometimes the basic run error light was on at this point. come to think of it im not sure if it was the basic run error but it was a red led. but anyways no matter what you do when the battery voltage drops down to like 8 or 9 volts its best to change it... depending on the robot and how much other stuff ur running on it you may want to change it at like 10. and just to support what i just said... in our practices we have had voltage drops down to like 6. i know we have had it reset but i think it was programmed to reset at some point. not sure on this but as far as i remember the controller itself isnt the power hog here.
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Unread 02-07-2002, 13:04
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no, the controller itself takes almost no power to run. what it controls is what consumes the power. and i'm pretty sure once the voltage drops too low, the controller is designed to shut it self off, so the robot doesn't 'spaz out' and kill someone. the controller cannot function with less than 8 volts, for reasons i can't explain. but, i know that below 8 volts, and it can start flipping out, so i'm almost certain it's designed to automatically shut down so it can't destroy anything. the fact that the solid low battery light is coded in and unchangeable supports my theory, i think.
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Unread 02-07-2002, 13:13
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There should be an error in your code, maybe specialized inputs returning invalid numbers...

But also you said it worked fine. Hrrm...

Put it up here and I'll take a look at it... just be sure to briefly explain your bot so I can get a good idea of what it's supposed to do...

Remember to rename the file to .txt before uploading (server won't accept .bs2 extension).


These are the worst kind of errors because it's in some obscure part of the robot code. Something like a counter not being reset... or an infinite loop. Something that allows the robot code to work, but only becomes apparent after a few minutes of operation.
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Last edited by Jnadke : 02-07-2002 at 13:18.
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Unread 02-07-2002, 13:35
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I'll say it one last time. The Robot Controller does NOT turn itself off. It just physically can't run w/ less than 8 volts input. The onboard microprocessors just can't function with that small amount of voltages (it's actually much smaller but there's some transforming going on inside the controller I believe). This has nothing to do with the robot "spazzing out." It has everything to do with the robot controller not having enough voltage. I'm also pretty sure it's the robot controller and not the radio modem that doesn't have enough power. Given that the radio modem draws power from the robot controller, this isn't too far fetched (and if the robot controller is off, there is no signal between the robot and OI).

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Unread 02-07-2002, 13:46
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Matt's right. From the Innovation First documentation "The minimum required voltage is 8.0V." And yes, that's for the robot controller, not the radio modem. The original question also said something about pushing the robot reset from the oi. This is slightly off topic, but I must admit I didn't know about it before, so I thought I'd share it: pushing robot reset from the oi is NOT the same as pushing it on the rc. From the oi, reset only resets the BS2SX, not the entire rc.

Stephen

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Also from the docs ... "When in doubt, pressing reset won't hurt."
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Unread 03-07-2002, 10:47
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BUT THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM !!!

Thanks for all u guys input, but that's not the problem. I know about less than 8 V thing and other ways of getting and fixing an error, but what if the controller says BASIC error, you press Robot reset, and it says it again, and u do the same thing. I repeated this process while in a match for about 5-6 times, and then the robot was running fine. The error surely didn't just disappear, and I didn't change the code.
WHAT HAPPENED THEN?

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Unread 03-07-2002, 12:17
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for the record....
read this about the radio controller and battery voltage (look under the robot controller section)
http://www.innovationfirst.com/FIRST...ntroller%20FAQ

back to the original question...
i dont think we really have a answer for you at this point punarhero....
have you checked your code over?
if you do a full power cycle on the robot (turn it completely off for about 15secs or so and then back on) does it go away?
its possible that when it gets to some point in the code it has a problem... some place in the code that it normally doesnt do unless told to...
have you found any coincidence in when it occurs or is it sparatic?

if what you say about reseting from the operator interface multiple times to get rid of it is true then there might be something wrong with the code. as stated earlier the basic stamp is essentially the only thing reset when u hit robot reset on the operator interface which would indicate that it most likely has to do with the processor or the code in it.

is there any other information that you might be able to put forth about this?
i think we are lacking information to figure out your problem... if you can tell us maybe what you did just before the light came on it might help
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Last edited by ChrisA : 03-07-2002 at 12:21.
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Unread 03-07-2002, 22:38
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Re: BUT THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM !!!

Quote:
Originally posted by punarhero
Thanks for all u guys input, but that's not the problem. I know about less than 8 V thing and other ways of getting and fixing an error, but what if the controller says BASIC error, you press Robot reset, and it says it again, and u do the same thing. I repeated this process while in a match for about 5-6 times, and then the robot was running fine. The error surely didn't just disappear, and I didn't change the code.
WHAT HAPPENED THEN?

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Punar,

Sounds like it's probably an obscure software problem. If you'll post your code, we can check it over for you.
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Unread 05-07-2002, 16:15
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Punar,
I'm not sure if you were aware of this but the problem occurred only when our revovling light button on one of the joysticks was pressed. To let everyone else know, our light button was set up to work only when you keep it pressed; not toggle. Hope this info helps others trying to help us.
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Unread 05-07-2002, 16:54
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Quote:
Originally posted by sanddrag
Punar,
I'm not sure if you were aware of this but the problem occurred only when our revovling light button on one of the joysticks was pressed. To let everyone else know, our light button was set up to work only when you keep it pressed; not toggle. Hope this info helps others trying to help us.
That definately sounds like a code problem. If you're willing to post it, several of us would be happy to take a look.
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Unread 05-07-2002, 16:57
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um, weren't you supposed to have the light hardcoded in so it was always on as long as the uP was running (during the match, and not when the robot was disabled through the competition port). also, that means that when that part of the code executes, something is going wrong. check it out yourself, and if it still doesn't work, post it here so we can help. we can't do much else without seeing the code ourselves.
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Unread 16-07-2002, 23:43
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I remember once I had my light rotate in the other direction apparently randomly. After a good deal of searching, we realized that our serout line didn't have enough 0s, so that relay 8 was being controlled by one of the variables for our tracks. We decided to leave it that way.
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Unread 17-07-2002, 08:04
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i thought the light could only turn one way... :/
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Unread 17-07-2002, 08:56
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Quote:
i thought the light could only turn one way... :/
Just apply reverse polarity and it'll turn the other way.

Our robot does that when pressing some buttons ... us programmers like to keep the operaters on their toes

Stephen
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