Axis 206 Camera issues.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It won't work even then. There's nothing running on your cRIO that will let a device plugged into one cRIO port communicate with a device plugged into the other one.

You'll have to put the D-Link (or some other router or switch) in the mix in order to connect all three devices together: the Axis camera, the cRIO, and the computer running the Driver Station and Dashboard programs.

We managed to ghetto rig our last years bridge to work and everythings good now, but I have to ask, why?

Last year we ran it off our 8 slot crio with no problem, with the camera in the crio instead of the bridge. What changed this year? Or are you just saying between the computer and the crio the bridge is needed anyway?

[Alan Anderson]

When there was just the single-port WGA, a special piece of software had to run on the cRIO to forward the camera image to the Dashboard. The problem is that the single-port 4-slot cRIO can't be connected that way. Every robot now has an onboard router, so it makes sense to take advantage of it and let the Dashboard program talk to the camera directly. It's easier to support just one configuration, and it's more efficient anyway.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

When there was just the single-port WGA, a special piece of software had to run on the cRIO to forward the camera image to the Dashboard. The problem is that the single-port 4-slot cRIO can't be connected that way. Every robot now has an onboard router, so it makes sense to take advantage of it and let the Dashboard program talk to the camera directly. It's easier to support just one configuration, and it's more efficient anyway.

Is there a reason the camera setup tool has an option for running it off the cRIO then? Because thats pretty darn misleading and would have saved some headscratching

[RufflesRidge]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

Is there a reason the camera setup tool has an option for running it off the cRIO then? Because thats pretty darn misleading and would have saved some headscratching

Probably because the cRIO can still talk to the camera like that and all the code to make that work on both the cRIO and the Dashboard is still on the palettes, just no longer the default.

[Greg McKaskle]

Since the eight-slot cRIOs can be used in that configuration, the option to setup the camera that is connected to the cRIO wasn't fully removed. I do believe the instructions encourage you to do it through the bridge, though.

Greg McKaskle

[FrankJ]

My recollections from the 8 slot crio days. When using the second port on the 8 slot crio, the camera was left with its default IP. The second port on the Crio was on the same subnet (different from the control side 10.xx.xx.2) The dashboard got its camera feed from the crio. So the widget in the dashboard is pointed to the Crios IP. With the camera on the bridge, its IP has to be in the same subnet as everything else. You had to change the camera's IP address in the dashboard widget for it to work. Now days it is default for the current setup. For it to work with the stock dashboard widget its IP address needs to be 10.xx.xx.11. If you go in & edit the widget, you can change the IP & make the camera IP whatever. Go look in the code for the older drive station & you can find the code that pulls the camera image from the Crio. Code on the crio also has to be looking at correct IP address for the camera.

If you are running the 4 slot crio on your competition bot, you really should be using the camera in the same way in your prototyping. A cheap office grade router will work for prototyping & shop testing. Even a $10 switch if you are going wired.