BDC-comm for 2CAN

[Mike Copioli]

New for 2013:

BDC-comm with 2CAN support. This version provides all of the features of BDC-comm with support for the 2CAN. A new version of the 2CAN firmware must be installed (included in the zip) in order to communicate with the 2CAN.

http://www.crosstheroadelectronics.c...201_7_2013.zip

Please report any bugs to support@crosstheroadelectronics.com

[Levansic]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

New for 2013:

BDC-comm with 2CAN support. This version provides all of the features of BDC-comm with support for the 2CAN.

I was really excited to try this, so we wouldn't have to drag out our ancient laptop to run BDC-Comm for testing. Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all for us.

I'm sure we are missing something critical. We flashed our 2CAN to v. 2.29. Our jaguars are flashed to v. 107. Almost everything is grayed out when we connect, with the exception of the ID assignment buttons.

We are able to see the whole bus, and set ID's through the 2CAN web interface.

[Mike Copioli]

Could you please send us some additional information via Email to support@crosstheroadelectronics.com.

- What buttons are grayed out?
- Screen shots of each tab view.
- What mode?

[Levansic]

I sent an e-mail last night, but didn't have any screen shots. I'll get some tomorrow.

All buttons were grayed out, except for the assign one and enumerate. Almost all menu options were grayed out, except for restore. We couldn't get the extended status (button grayed out), and we couldn't select a jaguar to set a mode. That was all grayed out.

We could connect and disconnect to the 2CAN, but that only enabled the ID assignment button.

[Levansic]

I sent a student to gather screen shots tonight, and apparently our problem cleared up. BDC-Comm 2CAN is working great!

After getting an e-mail from CTRE support, I can only guess that our problem was most-likely caused by having the 2CAN firmware utility still running in the background. Apparently we minimized the program, rather than quit, and that interferes with BDC-Comm's ability to communicate with the 2CAN.

In summary, once you update the 2CAN to the required version 2.29 of the firmware, quit the utility. After this, you can run BDC-Comm.

[jwakeman]

I used the new BDC Comm thru the 2CAN to upgrade 3 jaguar's from v101 to v107 firmware today. I have a 4th jaguar that would say "Could not detect boot loader" (or something like that) and the LED would turn off completely when I tried to upgrade its firmware. It had an older non-FIRST version of firmware on it..something like 8181 I think. If I power cycled the jaguar it would back but the same thing would happen when i tried to upgrade the firmware again.

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by jwakeman

I used the new BDC Comm thru the 2CAN to upgrade 3 jaguar's from v101 to v107 firmware today. I have a 4th jaguar that would say "Could not detect boot loader" (or something like that) and the LED would turn off completely when I tried to upgrade its firmware. It had an older non-FIRST version of firmware on it..something like 8181 I think. If I power cycled the jaguar it would back but the same thing would happen when i tried to upgrade the firmware again.

Have you tried updating the problem Jaguar firmware through the 2CAN web dash?

When doing this isolate the Jag so it is the only one on the bus.

[jwakeman]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

Have you tried updating the problem Jaguar firmware through the 2CAN web dash?

When doing this isolate the Jag so it is the only one on the bus.

I tried through the web dash today and it also did not work. It said it did not receive an Ack.

I still had the BDC-comm from last year and I was able to update the firmware using that version of BDC-comm and the serial interface. The old version of the firmware that was on the troublesome jag was 8161 (not 8181). Now that all my jags are updated to v107 of the firmware everything is working great!

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by jwakeman

I tried through the web dash today and it also did not work. It said it did not receive an Ack.

I still had the BDC-comm from last year and I was able to update the firmware using that version of BDC-comm and the serial interface. The old version of the firmware that was on the troublesome jag was 8161 (not 8181). Now that all my jags are updated to v107 of the firmware everything is working great!

Oh boy, It sounds like your problem was the dreaded 500 kbps bug. Basically if you update a jag over CAN and the firmware does not boot-load correctly(corrupted, poor CAN cable connection). The Jag gets stuck in boot loader and sometimes enters the CAN bus off state, thus causing your did not receive ack error. The recommended procedure is to power cycle the Jag thus rebooting the device and enabling the CAN controller. However for some reason on last years version of the Black Jag and I suspect all recent versions, the device changes it's CAN bit rate to 500 Kbps. The device then appears to be "bricked"(no led). The 2CAN's default bit rate is 1 Mbps, if you try to boot load Jag firmware in this state you will also receive a did not get ack message.

There are two remedies for this:

1. Change the 2CAN's bitrate to 500 kbps, flash the update, power cycle the jag and then switch the 2CAN back to 1 Meg.

2. Or update the firmware using the serial interface.

The second option works because the serial bit rate is not affected by this bug.

Also the CAN controller BUS off state is addressed in version 100 and newer of the FRC Jaguar firmware but is not addressed in in any non FRC version of firmware. You can reproduce the problem for yourself by shorting CAN high and CAN low together several times until the Jag stops communication over CAN (flashing orange LED).

[kenfox]

We saw the grayed out UI problem when someone changed the 2CAN's IP. BDC-COMM started up, saw the 2CAN (the COM Port showed "2CAN" and didn't warn about not connecting), but the entire UI was disabled as if there wasn't a 2CAN.

Switching back to the default IP fixed the problem.

The root cause may have been a misconfigured laptop network though. I am currently running the 2CAN on IP 10.33.22.10 and my laptop talks to it fine. BDC-COMM works fine on my laptop.

Terrible bug report I'm sorry, but maybe it will point you towards something in network communications.

[Levansic]

Not sure what happened, but now we cannot connect to our practice robot 2CAN with the new BDC-Comm.

The only port listed is 2CAN. We can connect over the web interface, and with the 2CAN firmware utility, but apparently not BDC-Comm, anymore.

We tried from several computers that previously worked, but now we get a message from BDC-Comm that it cannot find the selected COM port. That error appears on every laptop. We tried to change to a 192.168.0.xx subnet, and that didn't work either. Tried disabling the wireless networks, and verified for all of our laptops that the firewall was turned off. From earlier issues, we made sure the firmware utility was not running in the background, but in those cases, it would pretend to connect and it would not give the missing COM port message.

At least the web interface is still working great. I wish I knew what may have changed.

Has anyone seen this type of problem?

-- Len

[ozrien]

Can you confirm that FIRST 2.29 firmware is loaded on the 2CAN?
The 2.29 crf is in the zip with the bdc_comm.exe on our website.
2CAN Firmware version is at the bottom of the webpage and also can be retrieved thru the firmware utility.

That error can happen if BDC_Comm can't "find" the 2CAN or if it fails to load the DLLs it uses to find/connect to the 2CAN. Can you confirm that all the files in bdc-comm (CTR-2CAN supported) - 1_7_2013.zip are uncompressed together in the same directory. The directory should have a bdc_comm.exe, along with bdc-2can.dll and 2CAN_Comm.dll

Since you can get to the webdash I'm thinking something else is stopping bdc_comm.exe from finding the 2CAN. Usually it's a firewall issue. Are you connecting an Ethernet cable directly between the laptop and 2CAN or going over wireless? It shouldn't matter but a direct cable connection might help narrow down the issue.

[Levansic]

Yes. The firmware utility says that the connected 2CAN is on firmware 2.29.

The 2CAN is connected directly to the laptop with an ethernet patch cable.

I will have to check on the DLL's and the folder. Now that you mention it, the BDC-Comm.exe file, rather than a shortcut, may have been on the desktop of both of the laptops we tried. I know that when it worked earlier, we were just running the program out of the unzipped folder it came in. I think one of our aspiring programmers was "optimizing" or "organizing" the laptops...

-- Len

[Levansic]

Thanks again Omar!

It was indeed the missing DLL files. Apparently the executables were copied to the desktop, and the remainder of the folder thrown away or stashed somewhere else.

-- Len