[FTC]: First problem with FTC and LabView.....?

[PhilBot]

Hi

FTC 2818 just received their Kit of parts and I'm going through all the attached disks and software etc.

Keeping FLL, FTC and FRC Beta straight is getting difficult.

I sucessfully loaded Labview 8.5.1, updated the NXT firmware and went through the "Getting Started with Labview Toolkit for LEGO Mindstorms NXT" manual. (Located under the labview Program folder)

I was able to write several labview programs for the NXT, and ran them with debug mode and direct commands. I created some pretty cool realtime/logging displays. So I'm pretty sure all my software & drivers etc are GOOD !!!

Things went downhill when I started working on the "Getting started with the FIRST Tech Challenge Software" manual.

I just could NOT get the FTC Controller Station software to run.

The program loads, and I hit the Run Icon, but as soon as I try to type something in the "NXT" name box, I get a windows application error. Illegal instruction read..... I tried many times.

Since this is a pre-compiled (EXE) program, I went looking for the NI VI.
I found it (adjacent directory) and tried running that from inside LV8.5.1. Very simmilar results....

So now my question is.....

Who an I going to call? FIRST, NI, Pitsco

So I decided that THIS was the best place to start...... Any Ideas?

[GeorgeTheEng]

While I'm not sure FIRST is going to be the one addressing the problem, they are probably the best place to start. Email ftc_teams@usfirst.org.

They will either forward that to the correct people or give you advice on who to talk to. I think this is probably an NI issue, but the FTC can probably get in contact with someone familiar with the software. Calling NI directly will probably put you in contact with first level tech support who may have no clue what FTC is.

[PhilBot]

Thanks George....

I did send an email.... and after much more searching... I discovered the CMU FTC support site which is really good, and has it's own forum:

http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/...view/index.htm


However, I eventually figured out the problem the hard way... trial and error.

The caveat is that this might JUST be a problem on my PC.....

Ultimately I found that the FTC Controller program ran fine if I had the LT Game Controllers plugged directly into my PC's built-in USB connectors. Once I discovered this, I found several other combinations that did not work...

Interesting to note is that my PC has USB 1.1 ports onboard.

I also have a 4-port USB 2 card in my PC, and if I plugged the game controllers into this, the program failed.

I also have an external 4-port USB 2 hub on my desk, and if plug the game controllers into this device, the program doesn't run, regardeless of whether I have the hub plugged into the PC's USB 1 or 2 ports.

Interesting to note is that the PC was happy to recognize the game controllers on ANY of the ports, but not the FTC Controller program....

It's clear when I run the controller program that it just doesn't see the game controllers in any other location than the root USB node.... My only conclusion is that the Labview USB interface code is taking some shortcuts.....

Phil.

[dickswan]

I'm the developer of ROBOTC -- one of the available programming solutions for the FTC -- and also reasonably familiar with the LabVIEW stuff as well.

I have forwarded a reference to this thread to the NI developer of the Controller Station.

I have no problem on my PC connecting game controllers via a USB hub.

I believe LabVIEW uses the Microsoft DirectX functions "wrapped" by the "LVInput.dll" file. You just might want to do a search on your PC disk and make sure that you only have one copy of it on your C-disk.

NOTE: The ROBOTC IDE (Integrated Development Environment) has "Controller Station" functionality built into the IDE. You might want to give it a try and see if it is working. Being built-in to the IDE you can easily switch between compile/edit/download program source and then try it out on the Controller Station without having to exit NXT-G / LabVIEW and entering the Controller Station.

[PhilBot]

I eventually solved my problem.

It turned out that it didn't matter where the controllers were plugged in, just what elese happened to be connected.

I have a Microchip PicKIT-2 programmer that is usb based.

If I have this plugged in, the Control Station software won't run.

I guess these is some incompatibility somewhere.
If you have a simmilar problem, remove stray USB devices.

[thief]

chut it was the same prob i faced when i was learning