2015 Control System Alpha Testing

[Ether]

Originally Posted by marccenter

It would also seem if there are few perceived advantages given to a beta hardware/software test team over the existing cRIO2 system that this should be seriously considered.

What kind of serious consideration did you have in mind?

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

The link below digs into this a bit and shows the jitter of various timing mechanisms in LV. It is not safe to assume that all programming resources on a realtime OS are realtime.

http://team358.org/files/programming...Everything.PDF

Greg McKaskle

I have an email in to Mark asking for the LabVIEW code he utilized for those measurements. With any luck he'll have it laying around and we'll be able to test the new system in the same manner. Lacking that, we'll write a new one and test the cRIO and rRIO.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

The link below digs into this a bit and shows the jitter of various timing mechanisms in LV. It is not safe to assume that all programming resources on a realtime OS are realtime.

http://team358.org/files/programming...Everything.PDF

Greg McKaskle

FWIW. I'm linking this post because it mentions Timed loops in the section about multi cores.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=172

Follow the thread for jhersh's response.

[Jon Stratis]

For those who are wondering, we had an un-boxing today!

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

For those who are wondering, we had an un-boxing today!

You beat us to it, darn you!

I was heartened to see the USB wireless adapter when I opened the kit. I look forward to checking boot up times.

For anyone wondering, this IS truly alpha. No covering on the PDB or roborio, and we're still waiting on cables to ship.

We don't even have instructions on how to plug it all together

I loved the lablemaker labels on the solenoid and relay modules.

Did you get a deck inside the box too? Plus the cup? And what type of shipping box did yours come in?

Team 1718's Alpha site is up and running, and we're starting to post pictures, measurements and weights as well:
http://www.fightingpi.org/Resources/...ha/Alpha.shtml

[Jon Stratis]

Yes, we got the deck and cup, and it came in an identical box as yours, I just posted what I figured everyone would want to see first . Unfortunately, we haven't had time to do more than take pictures... Last night we were meeting for other reasons (we had a local team over for a seminar, and inboxed it in the last few minutes while waiting for parents to show up. I can't wait until our Saturday meeting to start playing!

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

For those who are wondering, we had an un-boxing today!

Love the butcher-block wood table top. Is that maple?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Ether

Love the butcher-block wood table top. Is that maple?

I'm not sure about that one. It's one of the workbenches the school got for the new space. They're primarily used for classroom stuff (physics and engineering). The team has a couple of other tables it'll normally use to build the robot, but we can spill over onto these when needed, and the other tables were full last night

[Jefferson]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

For anyone wondering, this IS truly alpha. No covering on the PDB or roborio, and we're still waiting on cables to ship.

We don't even have instructions on how to plug it all together

Yep, thin instructions with a high chance of failure, too much fun! We bravely,carefully (foolishly?) plugged it all up and got it running Monday night. There are good instructions posted now.

You can make the needed serial cable. We sacrificed an old db9 cable and soldered on the female PWM. You can watch the boot sequence from there. You can also FTP and SSH into it to poke around more.

I had my first Labview experience Wednesday, just trying to get something going on it.

[Jon Stratis]

Well, we started getting it setup today. The programming team got everything installed on a couple of computers, taking 15-20 mins each, roughly. Not too bad for a full install.

On the electrical side of things, we started putting together all the wires and such we'll need for a full board to control last year's robot. We're going to make a whole new board so we can put them side by side for comparison pictures. One of the students started bending up a new board (Polycarb, should be the same dimensions as the old board). And we're setting up the layout to be very similar to the old board. Now, just waiting on a delivery from AndyMark with some new speed controllers (which we would have gotten for the new robot in January anyways, now we have them a little early!)...

We also found out that, in true Alpha Test fashion, they aren't quite ready for us to get Java code deployed - hopefully they'll get something to us in the next week or two so our programming team can get something working and deployed. In the mean time, we'll get everything onto the board for the MRI (Minnesota Regional Invitational) event next weekend! Who knows, I might even try to convince the programming team to do something in Labview before then

In the attached picture, you can see things starting to come together. The yellow/green pair wire is for CAN. You can see it going from the RoboRio (not actually attached there) to the PCM (Pneumatics Control Module), and then from there to the PDB (not actually attached here). Having the CAN on the PDB on that side of the board does make for a long wire run down there with this layout... something to keep in mind for our layout in 2015.

One thing that was insanely nice with our work today - the new attachment terminals that are being used! They're used for CAN, power to the PCM and VRM (Voltage Regulator Module), and all other connections into the PCM and VRM. No more messing around with a tiny screw driver, having to get it placed just right to open the terminal, then having to hold the screwdriver, device, AND wire at the same time to get everything in place. Now you simply push down on a button right next to the terminal and slide the wire in. It really couldn't be easier. Removing the wires is just as easy, too!

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Well, we started getting it setup today. The programming team got everything installed on a couple of computers, taking 15-20 mins each, roughly. Not too bad for a full install.

On the electrical side of things, we started putting together all the wires and such we'll need for a full board to control last year's robot. We're going to make a whole new board so we can put them side by side for comparison pictures. One of the students started bending up a new board (Polycarb, should be the same dimensions as the old board). And we're setting up the layout to be very similar to the old board. Now, just waiting on a delivery from AndyMark with some new speed controllers (which we would have gotten for the new robot in January anyways, now we have them a little early!)...

We also found out that, in true Alpha Test fashion, they aren't quite ready for us to get Java code deployed - hopefully they'll get something to us in the next week or two so our programming team can get something working and deployed. In the mean time, we'll get everything onto the board for the MRI (Minnesota Regional Invitational) event next weekend! Who knows, I might even try to convince the programming team to do something in Labview before then

In the attached picture, you can see things starting to come together. The yellow/green pair wire is for CAN. You can see it going from the RoboRio (not actually attached there) to the PCM (Pneumatics Control Module), and then from there to the PDB (not actually attached here). Having the CAN on the PDB on that side of the board does make for a long wire run down there with this layout... something to keep in mind for our layout in 2015.

One thing that was insanely nice with our work today - the new attachment terminals that are being used! They're used for CAN, power to the PCM and VRM (Voltage Regulator Module), and all other connections into the PCM and VRM. No more messing around with a tiny screw driver, having to get it placed just right to open the terminal, then having to hold the screwdriver, device, AND wire at the same time to get everything in place. Now you simply push down on a button right next to the terminal and slide the wire in. It really couldn't be easier. Removing the wires is just as easy, too!

It looks really clean, though once the speed controllers and associated wiring get added it will get a bit more cluttered.

Is there any particular reason as to why the main breaker is on the negative side of the Anderson leads? That seems a bit weird and could make it easier for current to bypass the breaker.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

It looks really clean, though once the speed controllers and associated wiring get added it will get a bit more cluttered.

Is there any particular reason as to why the main breaker is on the negative side of the Anderson leads? That seems a bit weird and could make it easier for current to bypass the breaker.

I didn't see any direction on how to wire the PD panel.

There's a couple headaches around the PD board and the power lugs. To start, the positive power lead is VERY VERY close to the CAN board. Like 1/16" close. We actually put a lock washer under it to raise it so it's 1/8th away.

Next, one of the members already boogered up one of the power lugs. The mounting lugs are aluminum, and it took 2 seconds for it to be cross-threaded. We've fixed it, but I'd love to see those lugs get changed into something more durable. On the plus side, the power lug fasteners are m6 machine screws, so there's no messing with box end wrenches or crescent wrenches on the power distribution panel.

Note that some of the names are changing. The PD Board is now the PD panel. There are a couple other terminology changes.

The push-to lock connectors are FANTASTIC. You can put components next to the modules that have them, because you don't need to put a lever tool in and mess around with them. No PWM crimping is a welcome change.

We'll be doing a major web page update tonight including more pictures and specs on some of the components.

I haven't seen anything in the documentation showing the breaker must be on the negative side, but I admittedly haven't dug into it. Working Saturdays sucks....

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

One thing that was insanely nice with our work today - the new attachment terminals that are being used! ...Now you simply push down on a button right next to the terminal and slide the wire in. It really couldn't be easier. Removing the wires is just as easy, too!

It actually could be easier. You could push the wire in without having to push the button next to it. And guess what? It actually is that easy (if you're using wire appropriate for the terminal).

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

The symptoms generated by the new system under low voltage conditions (momentary dips as well as a dead battery) would be of interest. The effect of low voltage brownout on a maxed out USB power output, various communications types, PWM/Relay/Digital outputs, voltage regulators, peripherals like the pneumatics breakouts, in addition to how the system handles staged shutdown. The shutdown response to a short on the different types of power pins (what doesn't get cut), overloading the power draw of the USB ports, that type of thing.

Ability of software to detect and report or act on these power outages.

How the system responds to the overload of time unconstrained loops and other common rookie programming mistakes - grind to a halt or critical operations take priority.

Easy to write a test program that exercises every I/O at once. Identify limits, e.g. max number of encoders supported, and what happens when you try to go past those limits. Test and verify the limits they've told you the new system has.

I'll third this. Also, what is the voltage drop-out? Also, do we have access to the FPGA at all?

[yash101]

To make sure that I understand, are we switching control systems this year? Also, are we getting rid of the old cRIOs?