CAN Bus Control via Black Jaguars -- SOLVED!!

[taichichuan]

Greetings!

OK, after much research, tinkering and testing, I've finally got the CAN bus via the black jaguars beaten into submission. Attached is a document that outlines all of the steps that I took to get CAN bus control of a robot. There's a lot to getting everything set up. So, hopefully this document will save folks a lot of headaches or help them diagnose problems that they're experiencing. If you find errors/omissions or have a better way of doing something, please let me know and I'll update the document. I realize it's pretty late in the build season to be of much help. But, better late than never...

Regards,

Mike Anderson
Team 116

[gvarndell]

Originally Posted by taichichuan

Greetings!
Mike Anderson
Team 116

I know your name is not an uncommon name but your location narrows it down a bit.
Do we know each other do you think?

[taichichuan]

Hi George!

Yup, it's me. PTR folks are working with 4 teams this year. Because Herndon High is just up the road from me, I'm working with Team 116. Great bunch of folks. But, this snow is killing us. The school with the milling equipment, etc. has been closed for almost 2 weeks! We're slogging on, but the going is tough and the robot's got to ship in a few days. The DC regionals might be fairly empty this year I'm afraid, unless a miracle occurs. Especially given that the weather wonks are forecasting more snow for Monday!

Good to know you're working with FIRST. We need to grow all of the embedded engineers we can, so guys like you & I can retire knowing that the world won't come unraveled without our contribution to the struggle against entropy.

Hope to see you at the DC regionals.

Mike

[gvarndell]

Originally Posted by taichichuan

Yup, it's me. Hope to see you at the DC regionals.

I thought so.
And yes, getting ready for the regionals is going to be a challenge.
1629 will be there though and I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
Can't wait to see what kind of cool things your bot can do.
Team 116 is lucky to have you.
I hope they're fully appreciative of just how lucky.

[taichichuan]

Hi George,

Thanks for the kind words. But, I'm a noobie in terms of the FIRST competition. There's lots to learn even for old farts like us that've been around the block a few times. I'm just happy to be able to be of some help where I can. BTW, look for my new article about FIRST and others appearing in a new IEEE volunteer magazine coming out next month.

Mike

[rwood359]

Thanks for the great documentation!
I'm just starting to look at the CAN stuff in LV. Your document will help me get CAN up and running - now to find the rest of the LV procedure.

Originally Posted by taichichuan

Good to know you're working with FIRST. We need to grow all of the embedded engineers we can, so guys like you & I can retire knowing that the world won't come unraveled without our contribution to the struggle against entropy.

Don't think that you can give up on FIRST when you retire, it's addictive. If found it in retirement and it has become my second calling. Working with the kids will keep you young and keep your mind active.

[taichichuan]

Oh no! I didn't mean retiring from FIRST. I meant retiring from the work place. I've seen a lot of 20 somethings that really scare the bejezus out of me when it comes to debugging techniques, especially when it comes to embedded systems. Unfortunately, they're too set in their ways, for the most part, to hope to correct them. However, I'm a firm believer that the best hope for society as a whole is to terminate bad development habits before they get ingrained. This can best be done through programs like FIRST. I'm sure that I'm being too idealistic. Still, one can always hope...