New Ctrl Sys Early Ship - Benchtop Test

[Nate Smith]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Is there an option to select which network adapter Labview should be using, if you do have 2 nics in a computer?

Depending on how your computer is set up, it should be able to handle this automatically based on the routing table, not having to bother Labview with the details at all.

For those who have no real idea what I'm talking about, basically, your computer keeps track of which gateway(normally, a server at your ISP, or your own router if you are using one) is the quickest route to get to any particular address. Normally, it's as simple as 192.168.0.anything is considered your local network, and can directly connect from one computer to the other, and everything else is an outside network that goes through your gateway. Your computer should be able to figure out that 10.anything can be accessed through the second NIC.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Then I think it's possible that at least two versions of the OTB shipped...

I'm just trying to figure out what to tell people at the local workshops.

I suggest you tell them that there's a good reason for the software updates (i.e. the OTB code doesn't work exactly as desired) and that they shouldn't worry too much if the behavior before an update doesn't match the expected results perfectly.

[Greg McKaskle]

Sorry, my description was of what they are calling the default code for an installed image, not the OTB code. I don't have access to the code for OTB, so I can't tell you what it was supposed to do, but your description sounds familiar.

There were not two versions. OTB was what was burned onto the controllers at the factory. Default is what you'll have after a cRIO image update.

Greg McKaskle

[Mark McLeod]

You're just dedicated and overworked.

Take the day off, go eat some turkey and wait the parades.

You deserve it.

Thank you

[Bob Steele]

We received our kit yesterday... tried bench test last night.

I was wondering if anyone had a problem with tank drive vs arcade drive.
We could never seem to get tank drive (teleop and enabled)..no matter what we did we got arcade drive.

Is this an artifact of using the out of box software?

Anyone else see this happen?

Happy Thanksgiving...

[Mark McLeod]

If you get any response I'd consider it a successful bench test.
It just means all the parts from the DS to the motor are working together.

In OTB Teleop we only saw Joystick on USB 1 arcade action (w/button pressed) on pwms 1-4, neutral on pwms 5-10, no other button effects noted.

No response to a usb 2 joystick.

The jumpers in the prescribed positions did not affect results, but we didn't try all the other possible jumper positions.

If you add an Allen Bradley light to the hardware setup it won't come on either (but it works with the non-OTB default software update).

P.S.
Send my regards to Nataloia

[David Fort]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

....

1. pwm 2 goes full forward effectively forever all by it's lonesome self
2. Nothing happens and joystick 1 still controls the motors as in arcade teleop
3. pwm1-4 go full forward for 2 seconds

I'm just trying to figure out what to tell people at the local workshops.

That summarizes our experience too.
(except we didn't check PWM 2 and 3, and I'm willing to believe when it went for 2 seconds, it was only 50%, not full, which would be as "advertised". in the "full speed without any sign of stopping" case, I found that wiggling the joystick stopped it. But those details aside, I saw think I saw this also. )

[jaustin]

For what it's worth, we could not get Autonomous to work either. We did not understand what step 5 of 2.3.1.4 ("connnect a 2 pin jumper... to the sixth set of pins") was trying to tell us so we went back to the arcade drive pin config (ie jumper on the 5th set of pins). After we did that, auton mode worked exactly as adversized. Does any one know what the 6th set of jumper pins is supposed to do? Maybe it's a type-o in step 5?

[Bill Trump]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

I don't believe that the autonomous code uses the motors at all. It simply strobes the solenoid module outputs something like a certain black car on TV.

Greg McKaskle

Greg,

The FRC Control System manual said that in OTB autonomous mode, for benchtop testing section 2.3.1.4

Step 9. "Immediately upon enabling the system, the motors connected to PWM#1 and PWM#2 should both be activated for exactly two seconds. The motor connected to PWM #1 should turn forward at about half speed, and the motor connected to PWM #2 should turn backward at about half speed."

Our system did exactly that... so far, so good!

Bill

Team 801
Edgewood Jr/Sr High

[Mark McLeod]

See Greg's post #18

[JohnBoucher]

It's getting close to kickoff, so I am curious where we stand.

Is there a happy story for every horror story? As the problems localized, earlier shipped vs later shipped?

Is the documentation correct? Once the six weeks starts, will the teams that have waited to get the electronics be able to get them working easily?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

Is the documentation correct? Once the six weeks starts, will the teams that have waited to get the electronics be able to get them working easily?

The documentation worked great for us. It all went smoothly, as soon as the students got comfortable with using the wire strippers and developing a good feel for the Wago connectors.

However, note that I got special training (and I'm probably unusually attentive to detail besides). The TechnoKats programming group spent an hour last week doing the electrical work to put everything together, after which the bench test went exactly as expected. We'll be performing the software updates and wireless setup today, and I don't think there will be any issues.

[rwood359]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

Is there a happy story for every horror story? As the problems localized, earlier shipped vs later shipped?

Is the documentation correct? Once the six weeks starts, will the teams that have waited to get the electronics be able to get them working easily?

Put us in the happy story file.
We received the shipment a week ago. We went through the benchtop tests slowly and deliberately.
The floating inputs on the DS caused some problems, but by grounding the input we got tank mode. Jumpering to +5 put us in arcade mode.
It took one of our students about an hour to setup the wireless components. He had some problems with security. Unfortunately, he didn't document the problems and solutions.

Once we completed the benchtop tests, we added components one at a time and used the examples to test operation. We connected the encoders from super shifters started the encoder example, spun the output shaft, and observed the display. The same with the camera servos, compressor, etc.

We now have the full drive system (2 super shifters with CIMs, full pneumatic system and 2 Jaguars) plus the camera fully operational. We are programming a basic robot for bench test. In a week or so, we'll integrate into a robot.

We first tested with Victors then with Jaguars. As noted in other threads, the low speed performance of the Jaguars is impressive.

The early shipment is really an extension of the beta test, so the documentation will be much better by kickoff and should help the teams seeing it for the first time.

[Phalanx]

Add us to the fully successful list.

We physically set up everything yesterday, today we did the OTB without issue.

We've successfully re-imaged the CRIO and Updated the Driver Station flash as well.

We followed the most current version of the instructions to the letter and everything worked as documented except...

On small snafu was that we needed to turn off Wireless security on the Gaming Adapter as well as the Wireless Router. We had turned it off on the Gaming Adapter as per the documentation, but either missed it or it wasn't documented for the wireless router. Once that was done, everything worked fine.

So it looks like we are good to go.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

We'll be performing the software updates and wireless setup today, and I don't think there will be any issues.

I was wrong -- there were two issues.

First, the manual was apparently revised a week ago with no obvious announcement. It was just an accident that I decided to download a copy onto my own computer today before going to the shop to work with the students. It was less easy following the steps on screen than it would have been on paper.

Second, the Driver Station seemed to stop forwarding packets between its Ethernet ports for a while after we set the team number. We had to plug the laptop directly into the router in order to complete the wireless configuration properly. The problem did fix itself for no apparent reason, and in the end we had a working Driver Station communicating by radio with a working robot chassis. If the chassis hadn't been missing wheels on one side, we'd have driven it around the shop for a while.

All the messing around with IP addresses on the laptop was unexpectedly tedious, but now that everything is set it shouldn't trouble us further.