Losing connection when ramping over defenses

[Landonh12]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

This leads to an interesting question: with all of the rough defenses, will bots have increasing comm problems during the tournaments as the systems get shaken up?

I would not be surprised. This game will *probably* put more stress on robots than Aerial Assault due to the fact that you're pretty much required to go over the defenses.

BTW, we haven't been able to run the robot tonight. Still wiring up sensors and putting some final touches on before we get the code debugged and start practicing.

[scrblnrd3]

We had this problem as well, and we noticed that it was because the ethernet port in the RoboRio was coming loose. We fixed it by using the socket saver from the KOP and ziptieing it to the RoboRio so it had a firm connection even when it was being pulled on.

[Anthony Galea]

Originally Posted by roystur44

If your using a two speed transmission check to make sure your in low.

Can someone explain why this would be a problem? Currently, we are able to go over the B+D defenses by starting low and shifting to high to gain momentum which gets us over the defenses. If this is actually a problem, we might have some serious problems.

[Chris Fultz]

If you are going over the defenses in a high speed gear, you may not have enough torque to the wheels / belts to actually climb. You can stall the motors, potentially causing the thermal breakers to break, and possibly causing the system voltage to drop below the reset point.

Use the recording capabilities and look at total current draw and voltage drop as you drive over defenses and around the field.

You can also use JVNs drive design tools to look at your drive design and the estimated loads.

My response is all based on a hypothetical situation, not one we actually experienced this season ...

[cjl2625]

We had a similar problem with the radio dropping out. I believe all we did to fix it was secure all the connections and tape the power plug to the radio.

[flipthedog]

So we were practicing all day on Saturday while repeatedly having connection issues when driving over defenses or if we suddenly accelerated. We thought it was our router and so we taped it up completely. However it was indeed the fuses.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

This leads to an interesting question: with all of the rough defenses, will bots have increasing comm problems during the tournaments as the systems get shaken up?

Sounds like the FTAs (and CSAs to a lesser degree) will be busy this year. At least the bandwidth induced xmas-trees should be a thing of the past. Good trade?

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

Sounds like the FTAs (and CSAs to a lesser degree) will be busy this year. At least the bandwidth induced xmas-trees should be a thing of the past. Good trade?

Also the fact that no teams have spare radios is kind of an issue. Our team is marking our spare radio the one part we will not lend.

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

My team's main breaker was bad, but in a different way- the lever inside that lets you turn it on was broken. Brand new, out of the box for may be a day. It was the only one I've seen broken like that. Fortunately, we had a few spares sitting around

We had the same issue a couple years ago, had to mash the lever or a little bit of vibration would cut power to the bot. OP, if it isn't your breaker, check to see if the power cable for your router is firmly attached. We found that those hard impacts can cause it to get loose unless securely mounted. If it's available to you, I strongly suggest a 3D printed holder for the plug to keep it well secured.

[Christopher149]

We have been having this issue, and I think ours came from the voltage supply blacking out. We plan to modify our drive train so that hopefully it won't recur.

[Valkonn]

We had the exact same problem, it was a faulty connection between the on/off switch and the PDP. It was loose on the PDP end causing voltage to drop for a moment and the robot to reset.

[C.Lesco]

We are having the same problem, one of our mentors pointed out that our battery connection termintals was loose, maybe check that?

[Dominick Ferone]

One issue that could be occurring, is a problem with dropped packets.
Last year we picked up on this issue when testing driving over the step quickly. I guess the extra stress was making us notice.

One thing that can cause alot of dropped packets is programs on the computer trying to connect to the internet.
I think in our case it was the NI or Autodesk auto updater.
I believe the problem is those eat up bandwidth trying to look for updates, and with them not being connected to internet they obviously won't be able to update and just eat bandwidth.

I'm not sure if we were throttling our bandwidth to competition levels or not when this happened.

[pastelpony]

We had this issue. Tightening the bolts that held the battery/breaker leads to the PDP solved the problem for us.

[frcguy]

Our radio kept rebooting when going over the rock wall. Turned out to be a loose wire from the PDP to the VRM.