RoboRio

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by Chris Endres

They did talk to our head Electrical mentor, we are signed up for a full Beta testing this summer/fall. I haven't heard anymore specific details about RoboRIO, but all I know is that we get more mechanical room next year.

It depends on the space your looking for. It has a larger footprint but a much lover profile giving more "vertical spacing" depending on the orientation.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I didn't get a chance to come by at CMP but every prototype I've seen has had male pins on the controller. Perhaps someone can explain who thought this was a good idea? Male pins belong on cheap/easily replaceable components not on the core controller. They bend, they break, they accumulate chips. Is the plan to stick with male headers on the RoboRio?

I talked to an NI engineer at the booth. He was one of the designers and he said he would have recommended industrial connectors for the system but he said compromises were made to work with existing hardware. NI pushed for higher quality connectors and systems. That is why CAN is returning but CAN lacks a universal connector in industry and the system was "simplified" to using bare wire.

I think there was a fear that teams with less resources would struggle using industrial standards and the system was made to be similar to what is currently used. I could tell that NI wanted to introduce FIRST to more professional stuff but there was a reluctance to move to far away from the current model.

Its a shame cause I was hoping FIRST would move away from the bare wire connectors like the WAGO but it looks like they are going to stay . I really wish the PD board came different options, I want one with powerpole 45s board mounted.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

It depends on the space your looking for. It has a larger footprint but a much lover profile giving more "vertical spacing" depending on the orientation.

Overall it has a smaller footprint since it replaces the cRIO and DSC.

[Tom Line]

One of the first questions asked by the alpha teams was about electrical protection. First and NI are quite aware of what would happen if a controller was fried, and we were assured that it is far more resistant to electrical failure than the old DSC.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

One of the first questions asked by the alpha teams was about electrical protection. First and NI are quite aware of what would happen if a controller was fried, and we were assured that it is far more resistant to electrical failure than the old DSC.

The question was also one of the first asked at the RoboRIO Q&A session during the Championship. The answer: not only is it "expected" to survive electrical mishaps, it is designed and tested to do so.

[suhaskodali]

On the beta testing, is there a frc blog post this year similar to this one: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...c/blog-8-16-12 ? So that we know the due date for application, and can confirm the validity of the survey, https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JLTYSGS?

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

The question was also one of the first asked at the RoboRIO Q&A session during the Championship. The answer: not only is it "expected" to survive electrical mishaps, it is designed and tested to do so.

Basically, you can short any pin/connector to any other pin/connector or put battery voltage on any pin/connector and the RoboRIO will survive.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

I was told the RoboRIO we saw at champs was most likely the final hardware, so yes they are sticking with the male pins on the main controller.

Besides protection, you generally want female pins on the powered side of a connection to prevent shorts. Sounds like the rRio is designed to take such faults, but even so...

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

*sigh*

What's the spacing on the pins? I guess I'll go about trying to source some sort of adapter to make it harder for my students to destroy.

Should not be terribly difficult to come up with. I imagine (and hope) the spacing is the same .100 used elsewhere.

[rich2202]

Anyone else take a close look at the Pneumatics Control Module? The picture showed the compressor directly connected to the PCM. Unfortunately, no one was around to answer questions.

IMHO: I doubt they want to put that much current through the PCM, and the display graphic should probably have shown the Compressor connector going into a Spike Relay, which is then connected to the Compressor (like they show the motors).

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by rich2202

Anyone else take a close look at the Pneumatics Control Module? The picture showed the compressor directly connected to the PCM. Unfortunately, no one was around to answer questions.

IMHO: I doubt they want to put that much current through the PCM, and the display graphic should probably have shown the Compressor connector going into a Spike Relay, which is then connected to the Compressor (like they show the motors).

No connecting the compressor to the pneumatics control module directly is how it is designed to work, makes it cheaper and easier than the previous system with the spike.

[Pratik Kunapuli]

I also heard that with this new control system, the Java IDE is changing from Netbeans to Eclipse. Can anyone confirm this?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Pratik341

I also heard that with this new control system, the Java IDE is changing from Netbeans to Eclipse. Can anyone confirm this?

Yes. The C++ one is also changing from everything I've heard.

I'm sad about Java but welcome the C++ change. Windriver was... well it was special.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Yes. The C++ one is also changing from everything I've heard.

I'm sad about Java but welcome the C++ change. Windriver was... well it was special.

I am sad about the move to eclipse as well, I've grown pretty fond of netbeans the past few years. Though, it'll be nice to have both languages on one platform.

[AustinH]

Are there CAD models available for the new components in addition to the RoboRio?

[NotInControl]

Originally Posted by Pratik341

I also heard that with this new control system, the Java IDE is changing from Netbeans to Eclipse. Can anyone confirm this?

For Alpha Testing, the WPI Library plugins were developed for Eclipse. I would assume WPI will continue to follow suite and provide the eclipse plugin for eclipse coming the 2015 Season.

I can not confirm 100% at the moment that WPI plans to ditch netbeans altogether for Java. In 2012, they provided both Eclipse and Netbean plug-ins. But did not provide Eclipse plug-ins for 2013 or 2014.

What I can confirm is that for C++: WPI is moving from Windriver to Eclipse (which is free).

However, even if WPI only provides the official plugin for Eclipse, it is not impossible to set up Netbeans to develop for the RoboRio Arm processor and deploy on your own.

For Java this is easy, because all you need to do is add the WPI Library to your linker in netbeans. Since Java compiles to byte-code it is platform independant and no cross-compilation is necessary.

For C++: It is not impossible to set-up netbeans to cross-compile for the Arm Processor. The cross-compiler (g++) used on eclipse can be used in netbeans to provide an Arm Executable.

After the binary is built for either language, all you need to do then is transfer the binary to the device, and SSH into the RoboRio to run the program. This is essentially what the "Deploy" Ant script provides, and their is no reason why you just can't reuse the Ant Script to do this for you.

Currently for Java, netbeans is the supported IDE, however, I have my entire team setup using eclipse, we don't use netbeans for anything. We have been using Java and Eclipse for the last 3 seasons for FRC. I prefer to set up the build on our own, even if WPI provided us with an eclipse plug-in because I can run my own customizable build script. For example, after my build script creates the Jar File and transfers it to the cRIO, it then runs through my Java Code and generates a HTML version of the Javadoc for the code we wrote for the Robot - which is very handy. This is all functionality anyone can have.

I personally like eclipse, but for those that want to still use Netbeans, there will always be a way to make it work with some limitation, even if it is not fully supported by WPI.

In the past, I have provided turotials for teams to setup eclipse for Java development on FRC. Before the Fall, I will make sure to provide a video tutorial of how to setup netbeans for the RoboRio development.

At the end of the day, you are free to use any IDE you like, as long as you can link to the WPI provided libraries and are comfortable SSH'ing into the linux device on your own.

Regards,
Kevin