cRIO FRC2

[MikeE]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

They removed the physical DIP switches and one Ethernet connector. That cuts down on the number of places debris can find its way inside...

I'm sure NI have real statistics, but from my viewpoint as an occassional CSA this is a significant improvement to control system reliability.

[FrankJ]

The guys at the NI booth seemed to think it would be available in the fall. The new CRIO is being cost optimized to include what is needed & removes unneeded features. Aside from the size, I expect most teams will not see any difference in the performance. I was amazed at the quality of the people staffing the NI booth at the worlds. Lots of good information. Thanks NI for being there.

The camera will plug into the router. The default IP address on the camera will need to be reset to be in the right subnet. To make the camera image appear on the dashboard, you will need to re-point the image viewer in the dashboard to the camera's new IP address. The NI guys say this is much better. There is a white paper at www.ni.com/first on how to do this. To use the camera image in the CRIO, you will obviously need to use its IP address.

Axis White Paper

[nuttle]

A feature that would be very nice, particuarly with fewer slots, is the ability (implemented in the FPGA image that teams are required to use) to have some flexibility in terms of which modules can be used in which slots. If nothing else, having the fourth slot be able to work with more than one type of module would be very good. Some teams might want two analog input modules, while others might want two digital I/O modules, as an example. This is especially true if it becomes hard to obtain the original 8-slot cRIO at some point in the future.

[Mr. Lim]

Really liking what I see so far!

1) Like others have said, the ability to use different modules in the 4th slot will be key. If it means I have 3 different cRIO images to flash - one each for the 3 different possible modules - I can happily live with that.

2) If option #1 isn't available, then my vote goes to making the 4th slot support a "solenoid" module, and relaxing the rules on what we can hook up to them. We can do a lot with those sourcing modules, as they put out enough current to directly power a lot of useful things on our robots. We simply just aren't allowed to hook them up right now.