ANNOUNCING: navX MXP Robotics Navigation Sensor

[wt200999]

Originally Posted by slibert

A shipment of navX MXPs was delivered to AndyMark today; if you're waiting, please keep an eye on the navX MXP product page at the Andymark site, as they should become available for purchase soon. As noted previously, Andymark recommends interested parties should register for a notification when they are available by clicking on the "Email When Available" link on this page.

AM just sent out their availability email:

Limited supply will be available.

You are receiving this email as you have put your e-mail in to be notified when this item will become available.

Because of the higher demand than available volume of this product, we are giving you as much advance notice as possible. We plan to open the sale of the 99 available at 5:30pm ET, Monday 2/16.

The next shipment of these is due in about March 6th, 2015

We apologize for the inconvenience, with long lead time items it is difficult to forecast the demand, but will continue to improve this process.

Good luck to you at 5:30pm ET, Monday 2/16.

Jerry Budd
AndyMark Inc.
Robot Controls Engineer

I apologize for any confusion and missing this in the original email. If you have noticed, the product website shows that they will be available Tuesday, 2/17. This is the day they will be available in our warehouse, we are opening them for sale the night before so we can immediately ship these when they come in Tuesday morning.

Feel free to send any questions you may have my direction.



Jerry Budd
AndyMark Inc.
Robot Controls Engineer

[cjl2625]

I've continued to have trouble getting any kind of accurate reading.
I calibrated the gyro/accelerometer by holding down the CAL button, but readings are still off by ~10%.
I gave up on calibrating the magnetometer, I kept losing connection during calibration.
Is there anything I should try?

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by slibert

Team 2465 (Kauaibots) uses navX MXP w/Mecanum, it works great. ...

Thanks!

[slibert]

Originally Posted by cjl2625

I've continued to have trouble getting any kind of accurate reading.
I calibrated the gyro/accelerometer by holding down the CAL button, but readings are still off by ~10%.
I gave up on calibrating the magnetometer, I kept losing connection during calibration.
Is there anything I should try?

Please send us an email at support@kauailabs.com and we'll work with you on figuring out why your readings are not as accurate as expected.

[slibert]

Originally Posted by slibert

Hmm, you make a good point about the printing w/the top facing down on the bed. We'll get to work on your suggestion; we're also planning on thickening the edges a bit to enhance durability. This will likely take several days to complete and test, an update will be posted on this thread when the updated .stl is available.

A beta version of the navX MXP "Lid" enclosure (to be used when mounting the navX MXP directly on top of the RoboRio via the MXP Connector) is now available. If you're interested in printing the enclosure yourself w/a 3D printer, please visit the "Creating an Enclosure" page on the navX MXP wiki.

Those who prefer to purchase the enclosure can order it from Shapeways.

**** Change Summary ****

- Thickened the walls to ensure reliability in the 3D printing process and durability during use.
- Modified text on the lid to be recessed rather than extruded, supporting printing with the lid top facing down on the 3D printer bed.

[rich2202]

In the spirit of GP, it would be nice if AM had a way to limit orders to 1 per team for the batch available Monday. Two of us are ordering one on Monday just to increase our odds of getting at least one. We could easily agree to delay one of our orders to the March 6 batch.

[Thad House]

Has anybody had issues with their NavX's freezing the SPI and I2C Busses? We have been running it for a few days, and occasionally all reports will freeze and report nothing. Resetting the board does not fix this. The only fix is to reload the code on the roborio, which returns it to working condition. Has anybody else seen this yet? We are using LabVIEW.

[slibert]

Originally Posted by Thad House

Has anybody had issues with their NavX's freezing the SPI and I2C Busses? We have been running it for a few days, and occasionally all reports will freeze and report nothing. Resetting the board does not fix this. The only fix is to reload the code on the roborio, which returns it to working condition. Has anybody else seen this yet? We are using LabVIEW.

Here at Kauailabs, we haven't heard of this issue before.

It's odd is that resetting the navX MXP doesn't clear the error, as this will reset all the navX MXP I2C/SPI circuitry. And from your description, it sounds like resetting/power-cycling the RoboRio doesn't clear the condition either, right? That's a very odd failure mode, indeed.

Here are a few questions that will hopefully lead closer to a diagnosis and solution:

Q1: When you said the only way to clear it is to "reload the code on the roborio", do you mean re-loading your robot application, or do you mean re-imaging the RoboRio?

Q2: Are you using the latest RoboRio firmware? There was apparently a I2C-related fix recently, and that the latest image v. is FRC_roboRIO_2015_v23 and the latest FPGA version is 2.1.0f3.

Q3: To help us reproduce what you're seeing, can you also please let us know more about your configuration? Specifically, are you using the I2C/SPI busses for any other communications to other devcies [we've heard of trouble communicating w/the LIDAR lite simultaneous w/other I2C devices, for instance], and which of the I2C/SPI interfaces are you currently using to communicate w/the navX MXP [did it fail on both the same way?]

[Thad House]

Powercycling the RoboRIO, or hitting the Restart Robot Code button on the DS does make it work again. Also, the DS reports that there is no valid device at the address when this happens. Resetting just the Gyro board does not change anything.

Also, we are using the newest firmware on the newest firmware on both devices. And there are no other devices on the busses. This error happens on both SPI and I2C.

[slibert]

Originally Posted by wt200999

AM just sent out their availability email:

AM just sent out the announcement that more navX MXP units are in stock now.

[rich2202]

We got one, and are excited to test it out. We are waiting until the morning to place an order for a second one. We want to give other teams the opportunity to get at least one before we took a second one for the practice bot.

[slibert]

Originally Posted by Thad House

Powercycling the RoboRIO, or hitting the Restart Robot Code button on the DS does make it work again. Also, the DS reports that there is no valid device at the address when this happens. Resetting just the Gyro board does not change anything.

Also, we are using the newest firmware on the newest firmware on both devices. And there are no other devices on the busses. This error happens on both SPI and I2C.

After doing some checking, another navX MXP customer has indicated they've seen a similar issue w/SPI, and their thinking is there's an issue in the LabView WPI Library component. This seems plausible, since the navX MXP is a slave on both buses, and resetting the navX MXP(which completely releases the busses) doesn't clear the issue. But it's a bit early in the investigation process to tell.

We've setup a LabView SPI longevity test here at Kauai Labs, and will try to reproduce the issue - and if we can reproduce it, we'll gather as much info as we can and inform National Instruments of the details - and post what we know on this thread.

Until we find out where the problem lies and how to resolve it, you might consider using the TTL UART or USB interfaces instead.

[slibert]

Originally Posted by slibert

After doing some checking, another navX MXP customer has indicated they've seen a similar issue w/SPI, and their thinking is there's an issue in the LabView WPI Library component. This seems plausible, since the navX MXP is a slave on both buses, and resetting the navX MXP(which completely releases the busses) doesn't clear the issue. But it's a bit early in the investigation process to tell.

We've setup a LabView SPI longevity test here at Kauai Labs, and will try to reproduce the issue - and if we can reproduce it, we'll gather as much info as we can and inform National Instruments of the details - and post what we know on this thread.

Until we find out where the problem lies and how to resolve it, you might consider using the TTL UART or USB interfaces instead.

Follow-up questions: What update rate (in Hz) are you using w/the navX MXP - this'll help make sure our testing here is as close as possible to your situation. Also, what is your overall CPU % (average) when running your robot software?

[Thad House]

Originally Posted by slibert

Follow-up questions: What update rate (in Hz) are you using w/the navX MXP - this'll help make sure our testing here is as close as possible to your situation. Also, what is your overall CPU % (average) when running your robot software?

We are using 60Hz. Also it is using about 80% of our CPU. It hasnt done it since we switched it back to SPI, which is what we were using yesterday. This morning we were using I2C It had the issue with both busses.

[TylerS]

It sounds like you guys were having the same issues we had today.