2017 cRIO usage?

Technical Programming
1

So I am an electrical/program member on my team, 2374, and we have this long running t-shirt cannon we use to outreach at football games.

It’s old, as in 7 or so years old, and in dire need of repair.

We have, in recent weeks, gutted it, replaced the motors and their controllers, and completely rewired(retubed?) the pneumatics. The real kicker is coming in the programming. On our t-shirt cannon, we have an ‘old’ cRIO, and all the associated parts.

Our lead programmer is at a complete loss, as we have used the new RoboRIO since 2014 and none of us know how the cRIO works. We have some old computers with the old 2014 Netbeans plugins and the like, and I found the PDF instruction sets about the cRIO on the FRC site. However, I am at a loss because these computers are also old and soon to be thrown out, so I’d like to switch to a newer system.

Here are my questions:

Is there a way to program the cRIO with 2017 Netbeans and the associated plugins?

Does the cRIO work with the most recent drive stations, or do I have to keep with the old 2014 one?

I haven’t found anything about this, and am hesitant to work on the code for the cannon until I find out if I can use the 2017 updates.

2

Check out this thread: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160187&highlight=cRIO

You won’t be able to program the cRIO using 2017 software. It was not supported in the 2017 WPILib (and driver station?)

EDIT: I’d recommend looking into the CTRE Hero since it’s much more supported. You can still get away with the old blue PDP and probably the motor controllers.

3

*Replumbed *is the word you’re looking for. (though there is no lead involved).

What language are you using? I understand that NI still supports LV on the old cRIOs, but wpilib left them behind pretty much in 2015 when the roboRIO came out.
Also, from when I asked a similar question two years ago, I got this:

We switched to an arduino solution similar to the HERO suggested above by pkrishna3082, so I can’t vouch for CCRE having worked in 2015, much less today.

4

We also use cRIO’s for t-shirt cannons, prototyping, etc. Instead of trying to get a recent Netbeans release to work with the old WPILib plugins, you can use a recent Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA to program the cRIO with Java. This post from a similar thread will point your to one of our github repositories containing the libraries and a gradle template you’ll need.

The cRIO works with recent driver station software up through 2017 - just select the 2014 protocol. As of the current 2018 beta release though, the 2018 driver station does not support the cRIO any longer. So you’ll need to keep the 2017 or older driver station software around, but you can install it on newer laptops if your old ones are wearing out.

Hope that helps! Feel free to ask if any questions.

  • Ron
5

This exists if you use C++ to code.

6

You should also be able to use the open source QDriverStation for cRIO once the 2018 DS comes out.

7

The cRIO can still be used to program and is fully supported.

If you program in Java, the below will get you started:

It just can not be used with the 2017 eclipse or plug-ins, but you can use your 2017/2018 eclipse installation, and with the right Jar files from 2014 run and deploy code on 2014.

We still utilize our cRIO’s for past robots, and infact my students just went through the exercise of converting our 2016 machine from a RoboRio to a cRIO so we could re-claim our roboRio.

Start with this video. It will show you how to set-up eclipse to program the cRIO (we have been using eclipse for FRC long before it was supported). Fast FWD past the netbeans stuff. It also shows you how to download everything, and set up eclipse (without plugins) to build, deploy, and run code on a cRIO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onGfI0zO4Oo

We have a public GIT repo that contains the templates to program a Robot on the cRIO. I recommend using the commandbase template as it will be most similar to what your familiar with in 2017. Also search our github for 2013/2014 robot code. Other teams have theirs up as well, and it will show you how to code a robot for the cRIO.

Also take a look at the archived 2014 control system documentation, that will help you understand how to wire it: https://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/3120

Also look at the bottom of this post for a link to the 2014/2014 JavaDocs. This will help you programming using those Jar Files for that version of WPILib. cRIO can not support the latest Java7/8 language, it can only support the Squawk VM version of the language. So have these java docs around will be helpful: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133045

the 2017 driverstation can control a cRIO. You just need to place it in 2014 protocol mode in the setting.

Hope this helps. Don’t abandon the cRIO, and no need to spend more money on a new controller.

We also started to implement RC controllers on our older Robots 2013 and prior to keep them running without controllers, a simple RC antenna, and an arduio allows us to control motor controllers, relays, solenoids, and even implement safety functions (this sequence of buttons enables DT, else its e-stopped) that is also a cheap alternative to get away from the FRC-drivestation.

Hope this helps,
Kevin

8

“fully supported?” By whom?