Radio Probs

[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

Even when the robot is disabled it is reading input from joysticks.

IF your programmers removed the piece of code setting all the pwm outputs to 127 during autonomous mode those movements could be the result of the robot tryng to move while disabled.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the user micro is passed idle values from the master when disabled or in autonomous? I know this is the case on the vex controller, I remember it being the case for the FRC controller as well though I haven't used it in a few years. Otherwise autonomous could still take input from the user.

Originally Posted by prograid

I believe what he means is the opposite. The robot can move if it is NOT set to neutral.
In other words, if you don't say pwm01 = pwm02 = ... = 127 at the beginning of your autonomous, the robot can do whatever it wants.

To add to what prograid said, you shouldn't ever assume the initialization state of any variables in your program. This can lead to very bad problems, especially since a value of 0, a common initialization value, does not halt the motor! If you do not set the PWM values to idle you can have some very weird and dangerous results.

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by Adam Shapiro

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the user micro is passed idle values from the master when disabled or in autonomous? I know this is the case on the vex controller, I remember it being the case for the FRC controller as well though I haven't used it in a few years. Otherwise autonomous could still take input from the user.

During autonomous and disabled modes the RC is still getting all of the inputs from the OI, but when the RC is disabled the master processor doesn't create the PWM signals. That and the status flags in the code, is the only difference between the normal mode, autonomous, and disabled, modes.

Even if you are doing other things in autonomous it is a bad idea not to set the PWMs to 127.

[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

During autonomous and disabled modes the RC is still getting all of the inputs from the OI, but when the RC is disabled the master processor doesn't create the PWM signals. That and the status flags in the code, is the only difference between the normal mode, autonomous, and disabled, modes.

Ah. I forgot that it still gets inputs, that was how we used to select autonomous modes before the match started. Thanks for the correction.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Adam Shapiro

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the user micro is passed idle values from the master when disabled or in autonomous?

You're half right.

When the robot is disabled, all joystick and switch input is passed along normally. It's only the outputs that are suppressed. You can see this behavior using a Dashboard program.

In autonomous mode, the inputs are indeed forced to neutral (all joysticks at 127, all switches off). But if your program doesn't do anything in autonomous, that can be a problem. Not doing anything means not shutting off things that were trying to move just before autonomous was selected. That's what Eric and Tom are trying to warn about.

If you want to remove all autonomous actions, make sure to leave in the part at the beginning that sets all the pwm outputs to 127. Otherwise, a mistrimmed joystick or flipped switch can cause things to start moving and not stop until the teleoperated code starts running.

Here's another piece of useful advice: if you have limit switches to protect mechanisms from moving too far, put the code to read the switches (and take action based on them) in the Process_Data_From_Local_IO() function, and call that function from within the autonomous loop. The default code only calls it when in teleoperated mode.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Here's another piece of useful advice: if you have limit switches to protect mechanisms from moving too far, put the code to read the switches (and take action based on them) in the Process_Data_From_Local_IO() function, and call that function from within the autonomous loop. The default code only calls it when in teleoperated mode.

Also note, when you call it, call it towards the end of the autonomous loop or after all other functions have been called.