Low-cost Talon SRX computer?

[ozrien]

Hey All, Some answers below...

Does anyone have an inexpensive (<$100, or at least < $200) way (both hardware and software) to control a Talon SRX (in encoder mode) which includes both driving at a specified speed and driving (a single encoder) to a "click count"?

We get this question a lot through our support email. This is one of the main reasons why we made the HERO development board.
http://www.ctr-electronics.com/hro.html
It's a C# based NETMF board that allows you to write/debug C# robot code (works with the free Visual Studio IDE/Debugger). This is where we add features to our CAN actuators first, test them, then port what makes sense to the FRC system.

Our C# library is open source so you can use it as a reference for porting the Talon library to whatever.
https://github.com/CrossTheRoadElec/HERO-SDK

Also, if you are married to another hardware platform (familiarly, preference, whatever) you should consider looking at HERO anyway as a tool to field-upgrade/set-IDs, and to get your robot moving immediately. Then you can begin your porting effort by studying our library.

If you happen to be at Worlds this week, check out our demos at our booth. We'll have at least one robot using HERO and Talons.

Not that I really want to, but is there an inexpensive C# programming environment?

Visual Studio Community is free, see HERO User's Guide for installation steps.

...be wary of the security token put in the CAN bus every 100 msec (I believe that's still a thing). ....

We have FRC and nonFRC firmware. FRC firmware requires a roboRIO that safely tells us that we can enable, nonFRC does not need the roboRIO to enable.
The firmware file is on our site, use a HERO or roboRIO to field-upgrade your Talons.

A search for CAN bus shields turned up a number of shields

I've had a few customers do this. Typically they prove out what they want to do using HERO, then do a minimal port to Arduino/RaspPi/whatever. This is particularly helpful if you don't have a lot of flash on your platform.

I've also had a few customers just send high level commands to a HERO, which in turn updates the Talons (over UART or similar). See HERO User's Manual for serial example.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by ozrien

Hey All, Some answers below...


We get this question a lot through our support support. This is one of the main reasons why we made the HERO development board.
http://www.ctr-electronics.com/hro.html
It's a C# based NETMF board that allows you to write/debug C# robot code (works with the free Visual Studio IDE/Debugger). This is where we add features to our CAN actuators first, test them, then port what makes sense to the FRC system.

Our C# library is open source so you can use it as a reference for porting the Talon library to whatever.
https://github.com/CrossTheRoadElec/HERO-SDK

Also, if you are married to another hardware platform (familiarly, preference, whatever) you should consider looking at HERO anyway as a tool to field-upgrade/set-IDs, and to get your robot moving immediately. Then you can begin your porting effort by studying our library.

If you happen to be at Worlds this week, check out our demos at our booth. We'll have at least one robot using HERO and Talons.


Visual Studio Community is free, see HERO User's Guide for installation steps.


We have FRC and nonFRC firmware. FRC firmware requires a roboRIO that safely tells us that we can enable, nonFRC does not need the roboRIO to enable.
The firmware file is on our site, use a HERO or roboRIO to field-upgrade your Talons.


I've had a few customers do this. Typically they prove out what they want to do using HERO, then do a minimal port to Arduino/RaspPi/whatever. This is particularly helpful if you don't have a lot of flash on your platform.

I've also had a few customers just send high level commands to a HERO, which in turn updates the Talons (over UART or similar). See HERO User's Manual for serial example.

Omar, if we're not married to the idea of using Talons (cost/ more features than we need) how well would the Hero work for general purpose robot platform controller using, say Spark ESCs or for even lower load motors Vex Controller 29s.

[FrankJ]

How difficult would it be to get Jaguars working through Hero on the CanBus? Does anybody know if the Jaguar firmware exists? We have a bunch of those sitting around. It would be great to have a test bed that connected them to a x-box controller.

I see there are 3 PWM outputs on the board. I suppose that would do about the same.

[ozrien]

Omar, if we're not married to the idea of using Talons...

There is a 'P' Gadgeteer port that is PWM-hardware capable so anything is possible, but it is not supported in software yet. The priority for HERO is to better support Talon SRX, but in future I'm sure it will branch out to other things as we add more peripheral software support (I personally can't wait to see an IoT application).

How difficult would it be to get Jaguars working through Hero on the CanBus?

That's a interesting question, the CAN driver API in HERO is very similar to the CAN driver API we [NI/CTRE/WPILIB/FIRST] hashed out for RIO. So I bet a smart student/mentor could port over the CANJaguar java class to C#, and just replace the RIO CAN calls with HERO CAN calls. Java would be best as it is closest to C#.

BUT you must put the nonFRC firmware into the Jags. That will require using BDC-COMM (and possible a serial connection). Or 2CAN if you have one lying around

[ozrien]

Closing out my last comment on this old thread....

PWM Speed Controller class is now available in HERO SDK Beta Installer 4.4.0.25 (.zip)
http://www.ctr-electronics.com/contr...ical_resources

[teslalab2]

IDK if It could be any help but I got can jaguars running on arduino, follow the link in my signature.

[marshall]

The Zebracorns recently got one of our old robots converted to using Talon SRXs and a HERO board thanks to a generous donation by CTRE. We will be posting a paper about the process as soon as we can (we're in the middle of moving our lab right now).

Needless to say, the HERO board is an amazing tool for teams for this exact reason and it has us talking about how we can use it for more prototyping in the future.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by teslalab2

IDK if It could be any help but I got can jaguars running on arduino, follow the link in my signature.

I bought some SPARKs for this project several months ago, leaving the encoder counting to the arduino, but thanks.

[teslalab2]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

I bought some SPARKs for this project several months ago, leaving the encoder counting to the arduino, but thanks.

Originally Posted by FrankJ

How difficult would it be to get Jaguars working through Hero on the CanBus? Does anybody know if the Jaguar firmware exists? We have a bunch of those sitting around.

Geetwo, I am thinking though, you might be able to port it over.