[FRC Blog] Radio Silence

[Bryan Herbst]

Originally Posted by fargus111111111

Can we go back to the old, I mean REALLY OLD radios that were literally ready in about 10 seconds. These were before WiFi and while I love the benefits that WiFi brings our t-shirt shooter is one of my favorite robots because it has that old IFI system where the robot and driver station are both ready to go in about 20 seconds tops.

Sure, but you will also remove the possibility of teams having camera feeds back to their driver station, and you will likely have to cut out a lot of the other diagnostics as well, because the bandwidth on those things is pretty low.

You also have to start dealing with the limited range and the connection dropping when certain objects come between your DS and your robot again.

As for the DLinks from previous seasons- one of the major reasons they were dropped was that they were the biggest culprit in the "christmas trees" that we saw in the past. This is when all robots on the field would start moving jerkily or dropping out completely. The DLinks didn't quite conform to the WiFi standards, in a way that almost guaranteed christmas trees in poor connectivity situations.

Picking a radio for FRC is not an easy task, and it is often a game of tradeoffs. Knowing the team at FRC working on it, I think they understand the tradeoffs and requirements very well and will make a good choice.

[Philip Arola]

Weren't they already discontinued by the manufacturer? I understand this is a kick to those who bought them for spares, but they were having to look into the new -AC variant anyway, right?

Also this x1000

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

Please don't pick another radio that has a 90 second reset time... watching robots die on the field this year was especially frustrating (and common) because you knew it would be for a large majority of the match.

[Tom Line]

The boot times have never bothered me. However I'd love to see a new radio use power over ethernet. Eliminate the barrel connectors that come loose.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

The boot times have never bothered me.

Really? I'd like to think that 60-90 seconds in the middle of a match is pretty significant.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

The boot times have never bothered me. However I'd love to see a new radio use power over ethernet. Eliminate the barrel connectors that come loose.

That is one of the three things I like very much about the OM5P-AN we used this season. (The other two are the highly helpful diagnostic lights and the near-bulletproof performance. The small size is nice, too.)

Originally Posted by synth3tk

Really? I'd like to think that 60-90 seconds in the middle of a match is pretty significant.

If your robot's wiring doesn't have problems that make your radio reboot during a match, the boot time isn't a factor during a match.

If the radio does lose power in the middle of a match, the boot time is certainly going to be annoying, but it is not the problem you need to be working on.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

If your robot's wiring doesn't have problems that make your radio reboot during a match, the boot time isn't a factor during a match.

If the radio does lose power in the middle of a match, the boot time is certainly going to be annoying, but it is not the problem you need to be working on.

I'm not worried about my robot's wiring. (We did crap out once in Orlando, but no radio is going to withstand the ethernet cable coming out.)

I am, however, worried about my partners' wiring. You know, the partner whose bumpers are tacked together on hopes and dreams and the number is painted on with finger paint? To get everything legal took them so much time that there wasn't time left for robust. And let's be real, inspecting and fixing wiring with matches every few minutes is not feasible. And when I really need them to get their butts onto the batter for this capture, a little safety margin wouldn't be too bad a thing!

Edit because that was a little snarky: We can also work this from the inspiration end. A robot that's dead on the field is highly unlikely to be inspiring. (Not impossible, but unlikely.) And it's those teams on the margins that might be the hardest to retain.

[Tom Line]

Having a duel power system - one through the barrel and one through the ethernet would definitely help with redundancy. I admit I don't know enough about these radios to know if they will fail-over that way.

But a robot with poor wiring is a robot with poor wiring. They are just as likely to have their roborio die, their VRM drop out, or their speed controls stop.

A faster booting radio would be nice, but I'd rather see a radio that just doesn't need to reboot. Redundant power or just PoE required so that the ethernet latch provides a small measure of security would help those issues significantly.

I'd also like to understand what the impetus is for teams to not want to power their robot on before they are on the field.

Originally Posted by Billfred

I'm not worried about my robot's wiring. (We did crap out once in Orlando, but no radio is going to withstand the ethernet cable coming out.)

I am, however, worried about my partners' wiring. You know, the partner whose bumpers are tacked together on hopes and dreams and the number is painted on with finger paint? To get everything legal took them so much time that there wasn't time left for robust. And let's be real, inspecting and fixing wiring with matches every few minutes is not feasible. And when I really need them to get their butts onto the batter for this capture, a little safety margin wouldn't be too bad a thing!

Edit because that was a little snarky: We can also work this from the inspiration end. A robot that's dead on the field is highly unlikely to be inspiring. (Not impossible, but unlikely.) And it's those teams on the margins that might be the hardest to retain.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I'd also like to understand what the impetus is for teams to not want to power their robot on before they are on the field.

Aside from things like rushed battery changes, what is more dangerous in general: An energized system or a de-energized system?


There are two "energy systems" on the robots: Pneumatic and electrical. Pneumatic, there isn't a way around pressurizing it ahead of time, not if you need the functionality in auto. But, it does generally need the electrical system powered up and responding to controls to activate (unless you happen to know where the manual triggers are). But once the electrical system is powered up, it's powered up and if there's a problem, you'll notice...

Also, there's the "the gyro initializes on startup, so we need to be done placing the robot before we start the robot" crowd. Others call them "inexperienced programmers".

[thatprogrammer]

Originally Posted by EricH

Also, there's the "the gyro initializes on startup, so we need to be done placing the robot before we start the robot" crowd. Others call them "inexperienced programmers".

It's possible for even nicely wired radios to have their power come out. 5895 (our pit was next to them) and a few other teams at worlds found that the new radio's power port eventually gets a little loose and it becomes easier for the plug to come out.

[GeeTwo]

We had some radio disconnects during driver practice, and we found the loose connections that caused them. AFAIK, we had no disconnects during competition this year. However, if the radio model were not specified by FIRST, I can confidently say that a short (re)boot time would be among our requirements and specifications.

[Sperkowsky]

People hated these radio's because every time their robot rebooted on the field they blamed it on the bad radio. Sorry but it was probably something loose in your rats nest.

That said I didn't like the new radios power plugs as they were a bit looser then the dlinks. They were also more awkward to mount. Oh yea boot times

In all reality if they made the things boot faster and put us back to recycle rush we would all love them.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

People hated these radio's because every time their robot rebooted on the field they blamed it on the bad radio. Sorry but it was probably something loose in your rats nest.

That said I didn't like the new radios power plugs as they were a bit looser then the dlinks. They were also more awkward to mount. Oh yea boot times

I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager that a significant percentage of the radio reboots happened because the power connector wouldn't stay in unless you taped the darn thing.

Regardless of rat's nest wiring or not, it's still a pretty bad situation to sit there still for the majority of the match just because your radio power cycled...

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by thatprogrammer

It's possible for even nicely wired radios to have their power come out. 5895 (our pit was next to them) and a few other teams at worlds found that the new radio's power port eventually gets a little loose and it becomes easier for the plug to come out.

Solved.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by jman4747

Solved.

That clamp needs speed holes or you should switch to zip ties.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

If your robot's wiring doesn't have problems that make your radio reboot during a match, the boot time isn't a factor during a match.

If the radio does lose power in the middle of a match, the boot time is certainly going to be annoying, but it is not the problem you need to be working on.

It's inevitable that many teams will have poor wiring every year. Many radios will reset on the field every year. It would seem to me to be a good idea for FIRST to consider reset time when choosing the next radio. Watching robots dead on the field doesn't help to make it loud.

I watched a practice match on Carver where both 1114, and 330 got disconnected from the field. It can happen to anyone!