The new 4 slot cRIO-FRCII

[davidthefat]

Greetings Teams:



FIRST HQ closed Monday, July 4: Please note FIRST Headquarters will be closed on Monday, July 4th in observation of Independence Day.



New FRC Controllers: As announced at Championship, teams will have access to the new 4-slot cRIO-FRCII for the 2012 season. Rookie teams will be receiving the new controllers in their Kit of Parts, and veteran teams will be able to purchase the new controller chassis only, without modules, for under $300 in the late fall of this year. Your current cRIO modules will work with the new chassis. The existing 8-slot cRIO-FRC will continue to be supported and legal for use in competition, but teams wishing to purchase more of these controllers must place their orders with National Instruments by 10/1/2011. After this date, they will no longer be for sale. Teams can call National Instruments at 1-866-511-6285 to get more information and to place an order. Teams who have not yet ordered a cRIO-FRC this year may buy one with all modules included for $750.



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Now, are there any advantages in getting the new 4 slot cRio other than the size? I have suggested that we stay with the older 8 slot for the sake of saving money. Does anyone have a datasheet for it?

Is it: http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/206762 or http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/206764?

[Hawiian Cadder]

I think we may buy one, depending on how our fund-raising season goes. the new crio also has twice as much ram (according to the booth at nationals) so that might be useful for making a completely autonomous robot.

another factor is weight. while the new Rio doesn't weigh much less, many teams are 199.99 lbs every year.

we have a joke that this should be called the CC-Rio (compact, compact rio)

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

I think we may buy one, depending on how our fund-raising season goes. the new crio also has twice as much ram (according to the booth at nationals) so that might be useful for making a completely autonomous robot.

another factor is weight. while the new Rio doesn't weigh much less, many teams are 199.99 lbs every year.

we have a joke that this should be called the CC-Rio (compact, compact rio)

Personally, even with the added ram, it won't have much effect on performance, if any at all. I have yet to see a team that ran out of memory unless it was from a memory leak. Considering the fact that the cRio runs a relatively lightweight OS, you should have no performance issues at all. Honestly, I find it hard for any team to even come close to 50% ram usage. As my programming mentor put it: "FIRST gave us a Lamborghini as the main control system".

[Hawiian Cadder]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

Personally, even with the added ram, it won't have much effect on performance, if any at all. I have yet to see a team that ran out of memory unless it was from a memory leak. Considering the fact that the cRio runs a relatively lightweight OS, you should have no performance issues at all. Honestly, I find it hard for any team to even come close to 50% ram usage. As my programming mentor put it: "FIRST gave us a Lamborghini as the main control system".

true, and with the new wireless system, camera streaming is no longer a problem. so i don think there is really any reason to upgrade.

[davidthefat]

I have failed to gather any information regarding the "4-slot cRIO-FRCII". Has anyone found any information on it at all? Has anyone gotten a brochure or flyer from National Instruments at their booth?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

I have failed to gather any information regarding the "4-slot cRIO-FRCII". Has anyone found any information on it at all? Has anyone gotten a brochure or flyer from National Instruments at their booth?

Most likely, they will not release information just yet because these cRIO's are FRC specific, so I doubt information will be on the public website. Because of this, they will probably release information after beta testing is complete or as beta testing occurs.

[Racer26]

Remember. Just 4 seasons ago (2008), we used an 8-bit microcontroller getting control update packets at ~40Hz measuring in bytes, and running at a system frequency of 4MHz. That power level was only just slightly restricting the best teams.

Our current system (2009-2011) is a 32-bit PowerPC processor, capable of receiving control packets at ~6MB/s, running at a system frequency of 400MHz.

Its the comparison of the old system like being a Camaro or Corvette, more than enough power for 99% of people, but those top few race teams need a Ferrari instead. The cRIO is WAY overpowered for our uses. You don't buy a Ferrari to fetch the groceries and take the kids to soccer practice.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Our team is pretty set on getting a new 4-slot mostly because we've been wanting a second unit for a little while, and this is a slightly cheaper way to go. It will definitely be going on competition robots since it is smaller and a bit lighter. It's also a bit more powerful, but as pointed out, that's hardly a consideration as they're way overpowered already (until you start running LabVIEW... another thing we might look into changing). The old 8-slot will migrate around on old robots, practice robots and the like, and we also shouldn't forget that we have two perfectly good IFI systems lying around.

[mesamb1]

There is an existing thread on this:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=94889
It includes pictures(the real new CRIO isnt listed on the NI website since it is custom for first), and discussion on the tech specs on the new CRIO as obtained from the NI people at Championship. The major new info we have is when it will be sold.

[Greg McKaskle]

http://ohm.ni.com/advisors/crio/page...p/p/pcat/15288

I believe this is the base model of the the FRC-II, and the 9074 was the base model of the eight slot.

A clarification to other posts -- the controllers are essentially OEM specialized versions of a standard NI cRIO. They are not custom designed. The custom parts are the PD and breakouts.

Greg McKaskle

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

http://ohm.ni.com/advisors/crio/page...p/p/pcat/15288

I believe this is the base model of the the FRC-II, and the 9074 was the base model of the eight slot.

A clarification to other posts -- the controllers are essentially OEM specialized versions of a standard NI cRIO. They are not custom designed. The custom parts are the PD and breakouts.

Greg McKaskle

Greg,

Any knowledge on whether the cRIO-FRC II will interface with the 2011 FMS? Our cRIO bit it at Peachtree, and we have at least one more date with the FMS this year.

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

....Honestly, I find it hard for any team to even come close to 50% ram usage.....

I twitch at the challenge you just presented my kids with

Seriously though, I imagine you're correct, but I am not sure how memory friendly the LabVIEW environment is, it may benefit teams programming in that manner to use the newer model if it does in fact have additional memory. Otherwise, I don't see much difference. I hope we don't end up with a problem with a diverging code base (I don't remember the default slot configurations, but I seem to remember them spanning more than 4 modules bays for no outwardly apparent reason, and it seems like the smaller cRio may warrant a specific code base to address that)

Matt