Ye old IFI

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

That's not true for the 2004-2008 controllers and I don't see how it could be true for the 2002 controller (it isn't true for mine but the Master Code might have changed since 2002).

When the RC loses power, the speed controllers and spikes stop receiving a PWM signal that allows them to move. They immediately go to the no signal state and stop until the RC finishes rebooting and reevaluates the joystick inputs when it comes back up (~ 5-10 seconds).

What is your speculation on the technical reasons why you had that problem in 2002?

Surface-charged battery is what we think the problem was (they may have also had heat damage); the motors would start running when told to at the start of the match, but the controller would cut out. The motors would keep running, and yes, that's keep running, at a slow speed, and the E-stop could NOT stop the robot. So there would be someone pushing the E-stop, and the robot would keep driving without anybody at the controls.

You might not see how it could be true, but that's what happened. That's one of the reasons the backup battery was put in place; that came in in 2004. The purpose of the backup battery was to maintain power to the controller so that you could stop the robot remotely--it's not intended to provide enough power to drive around, just to maintain communication. So after 2004, it was a non-issue due to the backup battery.