Classmate Static Discharge Susceptibility

[Greg McKaskle]

Can teams who had issues with joysticks on the field give a brief description of how things were attached to the computer? What was plugged into the left side, what was plugged into the right?

Also, what was the setup procedure you followed? Did you plug in enet, then open the classmate, open the classmate, plug in enet, then plug in USB, etc?

As for static discharge issues, are there any other symptoms to point in this direction? Any reboot after a spark, any joysticks that worked until a spark?

Greg McKaskle

[Mark McLeod]

If you mean on the field...
The Classmates were already powered up and USBs installed when they arrived and connected to the field Ethernet cable.
Most Classmates were running all day. The Driver account must be logged out after a match and logged back in.

Lots of variations on what was plugged in and where.
I'll use one team as an example, Dustin or Nick can correct me since I wasn't there every time, but 816:

• First had the Stop button directly connected to the left Classmate USB port. With the hub to the right port with three joysticks.
• Second had the red hub USB connected to the left Classmate port and the black one to the right.
• Third, directly connecting just the two drive joysticks corrected the problem, but left them without kicker control.

The common factor seems to have been the HSB hub, and seems to be due to a faulty USB hub or hub cable.
I'll be carrying a spare USB hub cable or two at the next event I work to perform a quick to test when this happens again.

But the solution for teams in the middle of a match is probably to design your controls to have a backup alternative USB configuration that just uses two joysticks directly connected to the Classmate. And be mentally prepared to repatch on the fly.

[Greg McKaskle]

The reason I'm asking is to try and cluster the symptoms.

By the way, when this is in failure mode, does the diagnostics page show the joystick, and do the diagnostic LEDs show blue when joystick buttons are pressed? Do all of the USB devices go out, or was it sometimes the ones on the left, sometimes the ones on the right? Is it ever the case that two joysticks were plugged into the same side of the computer, and one stopped working, but the other continued working?

Greg McKaskle

[charrisTTI]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

The reason I'm asking is to try and cluster the symptoms.

By the way, when this is in failure mode, does the diagnostics page show the joystick, and do the diagnostic LEDs show blue when joystick buttons are pressed? Do all of the USB devices go out, or was it sometimes the ones on the left, sometimes the ones on the right? Is it ever the case that two joysticks were plugged into the same side of the computer, and one stopped working, but the other continued working?

Greg McKaskle

In our first failure of this type we had USB hub plugged into right hand connector and nothing plugged into left connector. We had KOP joystick, Logitech Extreme 3D, and Cypress module plugged into the hub. KOP joystick continued to work. Logitech was ignored. I did not check diagnostic leds at the time. Both joysticks did show in the list of devices.

In our second failure of this type, same configuration as above but RED power connector from hub plugged into left connector, both joysticks did not work. Driver station software would not cleanly exit. Dashboard continued to be displayed until we forced power off.