[FRC Blog] Radio Silence

[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.