Cypress / First touch I/O module recognition by DS after suspend

[Greg McKaskle]

I wanted to give an update on the Cypress identification issues.

First, some diagnostics.
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If the board doesn't have power, no LEDs are on -- fix the cable.

If the board has one green LED, press the button on it. If no red LEDs turn on, your board is fine and working.

If one red LED, in position 2 I think, comes on, the board has not been recognized by the computer and reenumerated.

For testing, we placed a small clamp on the button and repeatedly cycled through different startup procedures.

If the Cypress is plugged into an external hub, it will fail to enumerate about half the time -- red light still on. Usually, moving the Cypress to be plugged directly into the Classmate immediately fixed the problem -- red light goes off -- with no need for reboot or DS restart.

*** The 2010FRCControl%20System-Getting%20Started-Rev-0.7.pdf is a bit weak in its directions. The intent was to have the I/O board plugged directly into a computer port due to power limitations. It will be updated to state this more strongly.

If the Cypress is plugged directly into the Classmate port, the I/O board would occasionally fail to be recognized on a cold boot -- approximately 1 in 8 would fail. When this failed, the CyMiniProg Service was always running, but restarting it always fixed the issue. Since there is no automated way to restart the service -- yet -- it may be easier to reboot when this occurs. We are still investigating this issue, and it may be timing related. This is not directly caused by the FMS field connection, but since the presence of an FMS could change timing, it could make the failure more or less likely to occur.

If the Cypress is plugged directly into the Classmate and in a recognized state, we saw no failures when suspended and reawakened.

To test/identify a joystick, press a button and watch for the LED to turn blue on either the Setup or Diagnostics tab.

My recommendations.
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For teams using the I/O board, test it before each use by pressing the onboard button, especially after a cold boot.
1 Red LED = BAD
0 LEDs = GOOD

Do not plug it into an external hub even if using special pigtails that let the hub draw more current. Plug it directly into a Classmate port.

Test joysticks before each match. I have never seen failures except in over-current conditions, oh -- and then there is the cable not connected condition, but think like a pilot. Run through your checklist.

When not in use, suspend the Classmate by closing the lid. Briefly press the power button to wake it up. If the Classmate has slept for more than six hours, it may take thirty seconds to restore from disk, but for shorter sleeps it should resume from memory and take six seconds. I know of no issues with network recovery.

If I notice additional issues at the event I'm attending this weekend, I'll update this thread. Feel free to offer your own advice, but please explain why you believe it is good advice.

Greg McKaskle