Team 2980's Open Source FIRST BOT

[AndyTham]

The arm looks identical to ours here at team 2625 and we are sortof struggling with the code, would you be able to send it to us please? email: david@prowebdev.ca or daoud93@live.com

[Dr Theta]

It looks great! I finally got time to read through this thread and I am impressed, good job.

By the way the use of the term "babybot launcher" made me laugh my head off... I had some of the strangest images pop in my head.

[eedoga]

@ TEAM 2980 Programmers. This post includes EDOGA CODE. You probably shouldn't look at it because Im taking you through this process step by step...Also...I don't know if it will work. so...DON'T LOOK!

@ AndyTham

I'm sort of sorry. I think I already posted this, but...Our team suffered a setback a week ago today. A student on the team made some changes in the way in which things were set up without consulting other members of the team, and then didn't come to any meetings for almost a week. This created a sort of melt down of chain events in our electronics where we could not for the life of us figure out what was done, so instead of progressing our project was completely stalled until today. We are finally where we were a week ago. I put together some code that might work. Given that I am a mentor I am taking several students through programming our robot. They just finished getting the controls to work with the drive train, and will be adding the arm controls tomorrow.


Disclaimer - This is untested code!!!!! I am running on very little sleep given that our team meets 7 days a week and as lead mentor I am there all the time!!!!! Look this over before you use any part of it.

What I made can be downloaded here. It includes what I hope to be control for the arm.

the begin.vi that I came up with didn't fit in one screen capture.



Here is the teleop code I came up with.


I hope this helps. Also, I am guiding our programmers through this process. They aren't this far yet. If anyone sees anything that is wrong with this code please post what changes need to be made.

@ Dr. Theta

Thanks for the kind words. We just hope we are helping someone out there...especially the rookies!

Edoga

[eedoga]

For anyone looking at using any part of our code. The button to victor controls are wrong. Just thought I would pass that on. The values the buttons trigger are not right so the arm goes forward, but does not stop. Easy solution is to swap out the victor for a spike relay. In actuality that makes more sense anyway because the button solution was really either on or off anyway.

The compressor code is working just fine as is the code for extending and retracting the arm. Driving even seams to be working properly. The robot wasn't on the ground so I am not totally sure.

Good luck to you all.

Edoga

[jmanela]

Originally Posted by eedoga

@ TEAM 2980 Programmers. This post includes EDOGA CODE. You probably shouldn't look at it because Im taking you through this process step by step...Also...I don't know if it will work. so...DON'T LOOK!

the begin.vi that I came up with didn't fit in one screen capture.


Here is the teleop code I came up with.

I hope this helps. Also, I am guiding our programmers through this process. They aren't this far yet. If anyone sees anything that is wrong with this code please post what changes need to be made.



Edoga

I really don't see much of a problem in the logic itself, however, when I began to program I had all of my code in teleop. You might want to consider compressing some of that code into SubVi's so that it is easier to read. It was fine my first year when there wasn't so much coding, but the second year things got a little crazy and wires were EVERYWHERE so many wires... shudder.

But anyway, subvi's are a good way to compress your code and make it easier to read.

[Brandon_L]

Were having a big problem...

We are using two window motors into a small sprocket to a bigger 60 tooth sprocket via chain, similar to what you guys are doing:
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x...g/DSCN1408.jpg
(no chain is on in this picture..)

The entire setup works, but the motors like to lock up and when they do we have to put full power on them for them to unlock. The result being the arm slamming into our frame or flying into the air. Motors also tend to heat up a bit when this happens, but nothing extreme. We have two bungee cords down the back as a counterweight.

What did you guys do to prevent it from locking? We don't have a clue

EDIT:
I saw someone mentioning that having a jaguar controlling the arm might be doing something. I don't know if this is true, but we are using two jaguars.

[eedoga]

we recently started running into a similar problem. for us it was an alignment issue. the large sprocket attached to the arm was pulling out of alignment. That was why we added the two large brackets on the side. there is still too much play so we are adding a longer shaft when it comes in on Friday in the hopes that that will solve the problem. check the heck out of your alignment. Also I think when under strain the window motors can sort of bind up internally. It might be that you are overcoming the seasing.

finally I have heared that using some Electronic speed controllers makes the window motors unhappy. we are using a spike relay for each of these motors.

[anyheck]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

Were having a big problem...


The entire setup works, but the motors like to lock up and when they do we have to put full power on them for them to unlock. The result being the arm slamming into our frame or flying into the air. Motors also tend to heat up a bit when this happens, but nothing extreme. We have two bungee cords down the back as a counterweight.

What did you guys do to prevent it from locking? We don't have a clue

EDIT:
I saw someone mentioning that having a jaguar controlling the arm might be doing something. I don't know if this is true, but we are using two jaguars.

We had a jaguar running our lift mechanism on a window motor and it was locking up as you've described, probably once every few up-down translations. Switched to a Victor and no further problems.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=83973