Creating a DriverStation using another PC?

[MamaSpoldi]

I have been asked by another of our mentors to take an old PC we had lying around and configure it as another DriverStation (like the existing Classmate) to use with our prototype robot for off-season competitions.

I understand that the Classmate can be re-imaged using the "Restoration Key" provided in the KOP... however, I suspect this will not work on a different type of laptop as it would require different drivers, etc.

Is there anyone out there who has done this successfully? If so, then if you could give me the procedure you followed I would be very grateful.

Thanks.

[Mark McLeod]

You just need to install the latest Driver Station update to get the application on your PC.
That has everything you need.

[Vikesrock]

Do you need the Cypress board?

If not all you have to do is install the Driver's Station Update. When run on a computer without the DS software installed it will install it.

If you do need the Cypress software I'll let somebody else handle that as I don't have any experience with it.

EDIT: Edited to reflect the info from the posts below.

[Radical Pi]

Are you sure it doesn't install the cypress software? I remember specifically having to run the updater because of the re-install bug to get the cypress software running

[Mark McLeod]

DSUpdate1.1 includes the Cypress software.

[MamaSpoldi]

Thanks for all your info. I don't need the Cypress board stuff, but I'm not sure that just installing the DriverStation Update works. Have you done this starting from a basically clean laptop?

I tried this (ie. just installing the DriverStation Update) and it would not run the entire dashboard application - it kept giving me error messages for missing files (related to NI, vision, etc). I took this to indicate that perhaps I needed to have LabView installed to get this all working??? I am planning on installing that, but before I went through that process and then found that it still had issues I figured I would ask if anyone had successfully completed the process.

[Joe Ross]

I have successfully run the driver station and dashboard on several computers with LabVIEW installed. I have not tried it without LabVIEW being installed.

[Mark McLeod]

I believe you do need the LabVIEW runtime support to use the Dashboard.

It's probably easiest to just install the full team version, so you can also change the Dashboard program later if you want to.

If you want to save room then it's about 30MB and available as a download from the NI site:
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/1101/lang/en

[mgurgol]

I am not sure if just the Labview run-time will be enough. I was trying to install just the Driver Station update, and when I ran it, it was looking for some of the FRC vi's. I will try it tonight on the laptop I was working on and report back.

Note: I tried last night to load the Labview Run time software and the Driver Station update and it does not work The Driver Station requires some of the FRC specific vi's. (FRC_IO.vi). You need to install Labview along with the Driver Station update.

[Simspi182]

What I did was I found where the classmates DS app. was and put it on a flash drive and moved it over, but on the other computer it already had the latest version of labview

By the way this works.

N.B. I don't know where certain drivers are for certain controllers (i.e. for some reason only the classmate recognizes my Xbox 360 controller and the other computer doesn't)

[MamaSpoldi]

Thanks to everyone for their help. I have now installed LabView (and updates) and the DS update... and it appears to work - although I have not had the chance to hook it up with the robot yet.

[dbeckwith]

I downloaded the DS update onto another computer, but it only installed the cRIO Imaging Tool and the Setup Axis Camera program, no Driver Station. Is there another download that gives you the actual application that will run enable and disable the robot with the dashboard and all? The file I downloaded was from here: http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/lang/en/id/1535