Cannot Have Decorative Lights While Disabled?

[WizenedEE]

Hello,
Our team was planning on doing some sort of decorative light that would be on/flashing/whatever while the robot is disabled (ie it would be controlled by an external device or hooked directly up to the PD board). However, it seems that this year they are illegal. [R50] states: "All electrical loads (motors, actuators, compressors, electric solenoids) must be supplied by an approved power regulating device" Obviously, a light is an electrical load, so it has to be switched by a jaguar, spike, victor, or vex motor controller -- each one of these turned off by the cRIO FPGA while disabled.

Since the wording of the rule is similar to how it was last year, and I know that many teams had lights on their robot last year, I asked on the Q&A, "Are non-function decorations exempt from rule [R50]?" and got the response "No."

I don't see any way around it -- we can't have lights on our robot while disabled. Even if it's legal to use a microcontroller to run the lights, they would still have to go through an approved power regulating device -- thus, we'd need 3 jaguars for an RBG LED.

Also, this rule seems to also apply to other devices. The cRIO and the router are both "electrical loads," so shouldn't we need to put them on a spike?

The only possible way around this that I see is that the parenthesized list of names after "all electrical loads" is defining "electrical loads" rather than giving examples (ie they're using ie instead of eg).

What do you guys think?

[Garrett.d.w]

Last year we had no issues running our underglow lights while the robot was disabled. The lights were wired through a limit switch that received power from the PD board. The electrical inspection went without a hitch.
Seeing as the wording was similar last year, I think that you would be okay. It really comes down to the judges at the event. The rule book seems to disallow it, but I doubt that the judges would have issues with it as long as everything is done neatly (and safely) and you explain it to them.

Also, have a backup plan, like a spare spike in case if the judges rule against you.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Can you post a link to the Q&A response?

[wilhitern1]

I'd put them on anyway. Point them out to the inspector and how you did them. If they fuss, you just terminate the wires. Non connected devices are irrelevant. At least they were last year...

[RyanCahoon]

We were thinking about putting lights on our robot as well, and I have been similar problems navigating the rules.

My personal interpretation of [R50] is that it's only for actuators, and so the GDC's response was motivated by non-functional decorations that include motors, but I agree that their response does not seem to be thus limited, which causes problems for us.

To me, [R47] seems be somewhat of a problem as well, if you wanted to make the lights switchable (e.g. lights on in disabled mode, off during game play, which is what we were thinking) using something other than a Spike:

Originally Posted by R47

Custom circuits shall not directly alter the power pathways between the battery, PD Board, speed controllers, relays, motors, or other elements of the Robot control system (including the power pathways to other sensors or circuits). Custom high impedance voltage monitoring or low impedance current monitoring circuitry connected to the Robot’s electrical system is acceptable, if the effect on the Robot outputs is inconsequential.

(emphasis mine)

As far as I can tell, though, the only rule regulating what can be used to control a Spike is [R60]:

Originally Posted by R60

Every relay module, servo, and PWM speed controller shall be connected via PWM cable to the Digital Sidecar and be controlled by signals provided from the cRIO via the Digital Sidecar. They shall not be controlled by signals from any other source.

Which seems to allow them to be controlled using Digital I/O ports, which, if I remember correctly, are available regardless of robot state (somebody correct me if I'm wrong, that might have been only for the old IFI controllers). I wouldn't wire up a motor-controlling device using this method, but for controlling lights it doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by RyanCahoon

My personal interpretation of [R50] is that it's only for actuators, and so the GDC's response was motivated by non-functional decorations that include motors, but I agree that their response does not seem to be thus limited, which causes problems for us.

Considering that [R50] is in the motors and actuators section, I think your interpretation is reasonable. Perhaps a good followup question would be "Are non-functional decorations that do not contain a motor or an actuator exempt from rule [R50]?"

[WizenedEE]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Can you post a link to the Q&A response?

I don't think links exist for each question, but you could search for our team number or the text of the question.

Originally Posted by RyanCahoon

Which seems to allow them to be controlled using Digital I/O ports, which, if I remember correctly, are available regardless of robot state (somebody correct me if I'm wrong, that might have been only for the old IFI controllers). I wouldn't wire up a motor-controlling device using this method, but for controlling lights it doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I haven't checked whether or not they're disabled.

Originally Posted by nssheepster

Why, exactly, would you want lights on while you are disabled? The judges already know, and the drivers already know. And the announcers will tell the crowd, and thus your team. So is it just cool, or what?

It's cool, and (essentially for testing) we can see the vision targets light up on the camera even when disabled.

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Considering that [R50] is in the motors and actuators section, I think your interpretation is reasonable. Perhaps a good followup question would be "Are non-functional decorations that do not contain a motor or an actuator exempt from rule [R50]?"

Great idea, I'll do that tomorrow. I had the same "personal interpretation" but I wanted to back it up with the Q&A, but they gave an unexpected response.

[fb39ca4]

I would just add it and if the judges don't like it, remove it.

[JoshSmith]

This also depends on what you are using to control the lights (and what type of lights you are using exactly). Something like an Arduino could control an LED strip while disabled (what we used last year). This is compliant with this years rules as far as I know (at least from my interpretation of them).

The setup would simply be PD -> dc to dc power converter (powers both the arduino and the lights permitting they run at the same voltage) -> arduino -> LEDs. This way you avoid the whole jaguar setup and you can have LEDs doing whatever you want while disabled.

Just another idea to consider.

[nssheepster]

Why, exactly, would you want lights on while you are disabled? The judges already know, and the drivers already know. And the announcers will tell the crowd, and thus your team. So is it just cool, or what?