6 or 4 slot C-Rio?

[machman-2823]

Alright, so with the "new" 4 slot C-Rio, which one do you prefer for what your team did in the 2013 season?

Please reply with why you prefer the one you do.

And as always, please don't go after people for what they think, they have every right to think what they do.
So lets be engineers about this, and not a bunch of stupid lawyers.

[machman-2823]

The 6 slot C-Rio allows you much more flexibility and capability, Team 2823 has used it and had never had any issues with it. But when we used the 4 slot, it couldn't keep up with what we needed it to do.

[Jon Stratis]

We've used the 4-slot since it came out. The smaller size and lighter weight are fairly good reasons to use it, and we haven't had a need for more slots.

This makes maintaining old robots a little interesting, though... We have 1 4-slot and 2 6-slot cRio's. So, we keep moving the 4-slot to the new robot, and have to figure out how to cram in a 6-slot somewhere on the old robot. That's going to be especially hard with our 2013 robot... space is at a premium.

I'm curious... what have you done where a 4-slot "couldn't keep up"?

[machman-2823]

My team always planed to add all sorts of stuff after comp, like a train horn, bluetooth, RFID stuff, and a laser light show, and that's just for starters!

[Jonathan Norris]

I would highly recommend all teams using the 4slot, we found out this year that the smaller CRio has a lower drop off voltage where it will reset when the input voltage drops. The old CRio was far too sensitive to input voltage changes.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

I would highly recommend all teams using the 4slot, we found out this year that the smaller CRio has a lower drop off voltage where it will reset when the input voltage drops. The old CRio was far too sensitive to input voltage changes.

The cRio is powered through a regulated power output on the PDB - when the power drops to the cRio, it drops big time, as the chip is unable to function under a certain voltage.

[Boe]

doesn't the old cRIO have 8 slots?

2175 used the 8 slot crio this year and have used it since the cRIO started being used. We have had problem with the 4 slot that we haven't seen before when using the 8 slot which is why we stick with the 8. we dont loose any space on our electronics board because we typically zip tie the digital side car onto the open crio slots

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by machman-2823

My team always planed to add all sorts of stuff after comp, like a train horn, bluetooth, RFID stuff, and a laser light show, and that's just for starters!

I don't quite follow. What makes the 4-slot less suitable for these?

[mman1506]

I believe the 4 slot crio is a tad bit more powerful.

[FrankJ]

The four slot one has more memory. Most teams would not notice the difference unless you needed more than 4 IO cards.

[protoserge]

Originally Posted by Boe

doesn't the old cRIO have 8 slots?

2175 used the 8 slot crio this year and have used it since the cRIO started being used. We have had problem with the 4 slot that we haven't seen before when using the 8 slot which is why we stick with the 8. we dont loose any space on our electronics board because we typically zip tie the digital side car onto the open crio slots

Yes, but only 6 slots could be used due to firmware locking.

The 4 slot is more powerful.

[machman-2823]

Originally Posted by connor.worley

I don't quite follow. What makes the 4-slot less suitable for these?

we needed more expansion slots for more digital sidecars, we had a led matrix that we coded to use 3 digital sidecars to write to it