Out of control robot

[Mdphilly]

We are having a problem with last year's robot and we are looking for some advice. When we turn on the robot and enable the driver's station, the robot acts crazy. Has this happened to anyone else or have you heard of this problem before?

Any help would be great!
Thanks.

[x86_4819]

Define "Crazy". A few things that come to mind are:

1. Battery Voltage: A low battery can be the source of countless issues, causing random voltage drops, causing various electronics to brown-out

2. Joystick Input: Try running the robot with Joysticks disconnected, and see if that stills the beast. If so, then you probably need to calibrate your joysticks in windows.

Again, without knowing what you mean by "crazy" it can be a bit difficult to troubleshoot.

[Mdphilly]

Crazy means....the robot starts moving forward and backward without any movements on the joysticks.

[EricH]

A few items that might help:

#1: Are your speed controllers AND your joysticks calibrated?
#2: Are your joysticks set up with a deadzone?
#3: Are you SURE that you're sure that you're not in autonomous on startup?
#4: Has the code changed at all since the last time you ran the robot, and was the robot working OK at that time? (This is to eliminate the programming team's coding as the problem, BTW--still doesn't let 'em off the hook for their setup. )


A few other "standard" diagnostic questions: What are the lights doing (RSL, cRIO, power board, D-link)? What messages are cropping up on the driver's station? What mode is the D-link set to?

And, one more question: Does it do the exact same thing when you set it on blocks and power it on and enable it?

[rsisk]

Could it be running in autonomous mode instead of teleop?

[Jay O'Donnell]

We had this issue earlier this year and it was due to a faulty battery. Check your voltage right before you enable, or if you have a battery beak see what the status of your battery is.

[lakecat]

Calibration comes to my mind. I remember when the PID loop on our robot wasn't calibrated and just as much as tapping the joysticks caused the robot to shoot off.

[DonRotolo]

Disconnect the PWM inputs from the motor controllers: If it still moves, the controllers are faulty (possibly wired incorrectly).

If it doesn't move, then plug in controllers (robot off!) one at a time to find the problem. Then look in the code for that/those motor PWM outputs.