Robot Help!! Code Issue with RobotDrive

[Team2229]

Our robot is losing code and communication every time we gun the joysticks at the same time. it is fine if we accelerate slowly or only use one joystick at a time. Under diagnostics we keep getting the same error; however none of us knows what it means or how to fix it. We are not sure if the picture of the graphs has anything to do with this. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[2185Bilal]

hello,

it would be really helpful if you post your code up and then the CD community and see and tell you what might be the problem

[Tom Line]

That is symptomatic of several potential problems.

You may be browning out your radio if it is not connected to power correctly. Make sure the 12 to 5 volt stepdown is plugged in per the FIRST control guidelines into the regulated 12V, and not one of the normal breakered 12 volt outputs.

You may be tripping the breakers that power one or both sides. If both sides stop working at the same time, however, this is probably not the problem. If you only lose 1 side, and it is for 3-4 seconds, then you are probably tripping the breakers that power the victors on that side. Check for mechanical bind (have you greased your transmissions lately?).

There is always the chance that you have a bad battery. Have you charged your batteries, and checked this behavior with more than one? A bad battery can cause loss of communiation.

What does the portion of the driver station on the left say is happening? Is it staying at Teleoperated Enabled, or is it changing to something else like no communication?

[Mark McLeod]

Give us some context for the charts. At what point in the chart did the Communication/Robot Code lights go red?

Time how long those two status lights stay red.
Does the Communication light come back before the Robot Code light?

Watch the battery voltage when you gun the joysticks.
It sounds like the cRIO might be rebooting due to the sudden, sharp drain of the battery.
It could also be the robot radio is not wired to the correct power port.

[Team2229]

The robot is not staying in Teleoperated Enabled, it is changing to no communication. Then the communication light is coming on before the code light. As for the charts that is a picture when we lost communication and code and the robot is just sitting there.

[Tom Line]

Have you checked the items that we listed above?

[Greg McKaskle]

When you gun the motors, you are drawing so much energy from the battery that one of the issues mentioned above is happening.

1. You could be tripping a breaker. I kinda doubt this, but it is one thing that can happen when you overload a circuit.
2. The cRIO or radio, both necessary for keeping the motors running, are rebooting since the voltage dropped too low.

You can probably force this to happen simply by driving the robot up to a wall and then going forward on the joysticks slowly. The robot wheels may slip too much, but if they have good traction, you will pull lots of energy and find the weak link.

There are three likely candidates.
1. Your battery is already low. Charge it.
2. Your radio is wired directly to the special voltage boosted circuit on the end of the PD.
3. Your gear ratio is too high, or wheels are too large. Either of these will cause the motors to pull too much current for too long.

Check all of these, eliminate some of the easy possibilities and let us know what happens.

Greg McKaskle