Black Jaguars and CANBUS 2011

[7-11number1]

Does anyone have an working example of a simple demo robot that shows how to use the Java 2011 canbus class with the 2011 kit? I want to switch from PWM to CANBUS this year, but need an example to see how it all fits together.

Go FIRST!
-Michael
Team #1711

[rrossbach]

As far as the code goes, just create CANJaguar objects instead of Jaguar objects - for simple driving with a joystick everything else is the same between CAN and PWM. It also helps to do some exception handling when creating the objects, like this:

        while (leftMotor == null && ++maxRetries < 10) {
            try {
                leftMotor = new CANJaguar(1);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                System.out.println("CANJaguar(1) error " + e.getMessage());
                Timer.delay(.1);
            }
        }

        if (maxRetries >= 10)
            System.out.println("CANJaguar(1) did not initialize, cannot drive");

Aside from the code itself there are a bunch of other setup things to take care of other as well (flashing the firmware on the Jags, re-imaging the cRIO to use the CAN plugin, setting up the 2CAN if you're using that, etc). CAN also supports much more advanced control modes than just simple driving so you may want to consider that as well.

You'll find several threads about all of this in the CAN subforum under Electrical - if you need any further help feel free to ask!

- Ron
Team #2607 controls mentor