Is the FIRST Touch PsoC Board the only option??

[buildmaster5000]

Our team wants to use another board for Driver Station I/O this year after so many negative reactions last year. A preliminary reading of the manual does not prohibit this, did we miss something??

TIA

[Jared Russell]

Definitely not the only option (I can't find any rules prohibiting a different I/O device, can you?)

Check out:
http://www.estoprobotics.com/estore/...d&productId=33

[buildmaster5000]

It looked like we coud do this, but I've seen FRC do wierd things light this before so I just thought I would confirm before investing money, time, energy, etc

Thanks for your help

[Alan Anderson]

The Driver Station program is not customizable. Any control device you use will have to be recognized either as a USB joystick/gamepad or as the FRC-programmed Cypress board.

[Greg McKaskle]

The PSOC board and drivers seem to be better behaved under Win7, especially with DS reboots and sleep/awake cycles. I'm not sure what your negative reactions were, but if that was part of it, you may want to give it another try.

Greg McKaskle

[jhersh]

If you want to use a different I/O board, you will have to write all of your own code to send the data to the robot and to access it on the robot, in addition to probably needing to write code for the board itself. It is not against the rules in general, though... you just have to follow any applicable rules.

-Joe

[Radical Pi]

Originally Posted by jhersh

If you want to use a different I/O board, you will have to write all of your own code to send the data to the robot and to access it on the robot, in addition to probably needing to write code for the board itself. It is not against the rules in general, though... you just have to follow any applicable rules.

-Joe

I was under the impression that the FMS would prevent communication to the robot that doesn't originate in the Driver Station program. Has this changed this year?

[jhersh]

Originally Posted by Radical Pi

I was under the impression that the FMS would prevent communication to the robot that doesn't originate in the Driver Station program. Has this changed this year?

You can see that in R50 they added that you may use UDP ports 1130 and 1140. This is in addition to the TCP port that was available last year (the "camera" port).

R52 states that all signals must come from the OPERATOR CONSOLE, not the Driver Station software.

If I recall UDP 1130 may be used for traffic from the Dashboard (Driver Station Ethernet network cable) to the Robot and UDP 1140 may used for traffic from the Robot to the Dashboard.

-Joe

[Radical Pi]

Originally Posted by jhersh

You can see that in R50 they added that you may use UDP ports 1130 and 1140. This is in addition to the TCP port that was available last year (the "camera" port).

Ah, I thought those were only allowed within the robot itself.

On a slightly related note, it is possible to connect two PSoC boards to the DS laptop and prevent one from being seen by the DS app via custom firmware, then use a custom driver to supplement the I/O ports we usually get?

[jhersh]

Originally Posted by Radical Pi

On a slightly related note, it is possible to connect two PSoC boards to the DS laptop and prevent one from being seen by the DS app via custom firmware, then use a custom driver to supplement the I/O ports we usually get?

I can't say I've ever tried that. I can't think of an easy way to do it. The DS may only read from the first one, but which one is the first one will probably not be something you have control over aside from unplugging the extra one every time you start the DS.

[jtechau]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

The PSOC board and drivers seem to be better behaved under Win7, especially with DS reboots and sleep/awake cycles. I'm not sure what your negative reactions were, but if that was part of it, you may want to give it another try.

For us, that was part of it. We haven't tried it this year, and are hoping to avoid it altogether. Personally, the occasional 1-2 hour uninstall/re-install of the PSoC drivers on the Classmate is not something I'm willing to risk.

On the other hand, the eStop CCI board (cited above by Jared) is not programmable nor does it require Windows drivers. As advertised, it's completely plug and play, and shows up as a "joystick" in the DS software. Ours recently came in, and we haven't tried it yet. But if it works as advertised, it should be a much cleaner and more reliable solution than the Cypress board.

[John Heden]

This is an interesting thread with references to R50 and the possibility of using UDP port 1140 to communicate from a custom dashboard directly TO the Robot rather than being strictly limited to a handful of joystick & I/O calls. This R50 UDP 1140 reference, however, is under the cRIO-FRC Ethernet Port and perhaps does not apply broadly. R52 states that all communications must originate from the Operator Console and/or Field management system. If 1140 is not blocked, can we transfer small quantities of data TO the robot from our console on this port ? I can’t find any rule that explicitly prohibits this but can’t be sure the FRC system would enable this either. This would open the dashboard for a number of great driver options where they could interact through dashboard virtual screen objects rather than purely physical USB devices…

“If I recall UDP 1130 may be used for traffic from the Dashboard (Driver Station Ethernet network cable) to the Robot and UDP 1140 may used for traffic from the Robot to the Dashboard”

[sjspry]

Rule 75 prohibits anything but the dashboard from sending driver/operator input to the robot.

Personally, I think this rule should be waived assuming you demonstrate that control is turned off during the disabled period (you could do this and not tell them by having the cRIO try to connect back to the PC, or vice versa, and sending it commands that way. You won't have a nice wrapper, though, but joystick drivers will give you the values you already expect from, say, the Joystick class).

There is, however, virtual joystick software, so you can wire up a numpad or keyboard to something: http://headsoft.com.au/index.php?category=vjoy

[eStop Robotics]

Greetings from eStop Robotics!

Many thanks to Jared for suggesting our new product the CCI (Custom Controls Interface)!!! The CCI can be used as an input device for the Drivers Station in addition to joysticks, gamepads, and the Cypress PsoC Board.

The CCI has 12 digital inputs and 4 analog inputs. No special SW or drivers to install. It works with your Driver Station PC out of the box. Your cRio programming is also no different than using a joystick, the same functions are used for the CCI as a regular usb joystick.

http://www.estoprobotics.com/estore/...d&productId=33


Good Luck to all the teams!!!