PSA: Please update your firmwares

[Thad House]

We went to our first event today, and probably 3/4 of the teams did not have their driver stations up to date. Almost everyone was either missing PCM or PDP firmware. And a few teams even had roboRIO images out of date. Please make sure to have the newest DS installed, and know how to update the images and firmwares for everything else.

The newest DS software can be found here. It also include all of the newest firmware and images.

To update the firmware on the RoboRIO, the instructions can be found here. Please note that this MUST be done over USB, and fails over ethernet.

You then should do an image update as well. This doesnt always have to be done, but on some systems we've noticed it has, and it doesnt hurt to do it. Instructions can be found here.

Instructions for updating the modules and talons can be found here.

If the driver station software has been updated before doing this, you should end up with the following firmware versions: (Numbers inside parentheses are versions legally required.)

DS Software: 09021500 (08021500)
RoboRio Firmware: 2.1.0f3 (2.1.0f3)
RoboRio Image: v23 (v23)
PCM Firmware: 1.62 (1.62)
PDP Firmware: 1.40 (1.37)
Talon SRX Firmware 1.04 (1.01 for CAN, 0.28 for PWM)


Thank you. It will make your inspectors much happier.

[orangemoore]

I assume you mean that we should do this as soon as our robots are out at the bag at competition?

Right?

[Thad House]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

I assume you mean that we should do this as soon as our robots are out at the bag at competition?

Right?

Driver Station can and should be done now. But yes do the other ones after you unbag but try to do it before you get inspection help. And know how to do it before hand.

1 more thing to note. If you use Java, and need to upgrade the firmware, you will have to reinstall the JVM. So make sure you follow the instructions here so you can get java predownloaded, because you wont be able to download it again at the competition.

[jojoguy10]

Awesome, good to know. I guess I'll have to double-check ours.

[crake]

Note if you've updated roboRIO's FW to 2.1.0f3 (2.1.0f3) you don't need to update it again. In terms of opportunities to go wrong, the FW image is more risky (prone to issues if power is removed, etc.) but it only should have to happen once in a season, if at all.