CAN, NI 9853, and LabView

OK, pretty sure I allowed something stupid to happen. Because of our disastrous results with PWM cables in the past, our team wanted to do CAN this year. We ordered a new cRIO, since we didn’t want to disable the robot from last year. Anyway, according to NI, to do CAN, we needed a NI 9853 which was $1200! Ouch!

Bit the bullet and got the hardware, but I can’t seem to find much support on writing code to use that module. Everything seems to point me to using the Black Jag bridge method. Now I was able to use the BDC-Comm and assign unique IDs to all the Jags. And I can control the speed from the PC. Trying to use the NI 9853, I get a (of the top of my head) Error Code 52020 NetComm_can_send.vi something or other in the diagnostics box on the DS.

So my questions, I ordered the module 20 days ago. Should I just try to send it back and hope I can get my money back? Or is there something I can do to make this module work? Is there an advantage to the module? And can anyone explain what this error is? I get it with both my code and the CANResources project.

Shame on me for not doing the research enough up front. Now I need help fixing it.

Thanks,

Tim

Send it back.

The FRC cRIO is hardcoded as to which module is supported in which slot.
That commercial CAN module is not supported in our cRIO application.

I hope you ordered the standard FRC cRIO package with all the supported modules included for $750.

Yeah, we did order the $750 version of the cRIO. Guess it irks me a little that NI wouldn’t mention something while it was being ordered over the phone. Granted its my fault, but the person who places orders for parts us doesn’t know any better.

I’m sure it’s a great module, and I’d love to play with one myself.

Unfortunately, being over $400, it’s not legal under the FRC COTS rules.

Depending on what NI says, I might have one for sale. :slight_smile:

Basically I’m swallowing my pride now, than be told at the competition otherwise. I just hope we can send it back. Otherwise, I would have been better off just telling the girl who handles our finances that we used it than get the beating I’m about to get this Saturday when I see her face to face.

Thanks for your help though.

Hi DesignFlaw06,

Where you able to contact NI about this? If you call 1-866-511-6285 and ask to speak with an Applications Engineer, they can probably help you out.

Yeah we were able to return it minus a restocking fee of 15%. Bit of a painful oops, but live and learn.