Powering your USB Hub at Competition

[DonRotolo]

Even though this thread is discussing the control system, I found this to be important enough for its own thread.

Twice our robot became unresponsive, either right at the start of teleop, or shortly after. Pete the FTA at NJ looked carefully at the robot when it happened both times, and in both cases the symptom was no comms from cRio to the wireless adapter.

We strongly believe the solution was insufficient power from the classmate PC to the USB hub for the joysticks.

The solution was to plug both the red and the black USB connectors into the Classmate, doubling the available power for the hub devices.

We have four devices connected to the hub: a joystick, and gamepad, the E-Stop button and the PSOC. I heard from three teams that they had experienced similar issues, and connecting the hub to the classmate twice ( the cable to the hub is a "Y" cable) fixed it. As it did for us.

I can't say how USB affected comms on the 'bot, but after we connected the hub this way, the problem went away. YMMV.

Don