IFI control system-radios

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

If I recall correctly (and to be honest, I'm pretty sure I'm not recalling correctly, but somewhere in the vicinity of correctly) the tether port is basic RS-232 serial, with the wiring a little goofed up (I remember the tether cable being a bit different, I think it swapped TX and RX) and some provisions for carrying power from the RC to the OI.

I can't remember the configuration for the tether port, but I do seem to recall that plugging it directly in to your RS-232 port is a bad thing to do. The programming port was fine to plug in directly, but the tether port is definitely NOT straight RS-232. It had an additional power line, as I recall, that can toast your PC's serial port.

The radio port, I believe, was RS-485.

But here's the thing... drop a note to the people at VEX robotics. They have awesome documentation, the original source code, and all the specs sitting on a hard drive somewhere. It might not be on their web site, but they are likely more than happy to send you a package with everything you need to know. They spent a lot of time developing it, after all!

Jason