CTRE Gadgeteer Driver Module

We just bought two of the CTRE Gadgeteer Driver Modules and were hoping to use them to control RGB LEDs on our robot. We have non-addressable (3-channels, common annode) RGB LED strips as well to use with it. There is no user’s guide or anything for this module on the CTRE page, though I suppose it is a pretty simple low-side driver.

Our drivetrain has three Talon SRXs on each side, with one on each side (master) with a CTRE Mag encoder. The other two on each side are set up as followers, so they have unoccupied data ports. Based on the post below, and the demo at STLCMP of a Talon + Low-side Driver Module controlling RGB LEDs, I had thought that we could plug into one of these available data ports.

That post does only have the HERO supported at that time, but it does mention future support for FRC. However, in the CTRE Phoenix docs, I am not able to find anything similar to this to control the outputs of the module. Has this functionality been added yet? If so, can anyone point me in the direction of documentation?

If not, is there any way we can use other functions in the TalonSRX library to control the driver module? I am assuming that this just uses N-channel MOSFETs or similar so it should just run on digital I/O. If that is true, would there be other features on the TalonSRX that would allow me to take control of the digital I/O on the Gadgeteer port? I think it may be easier to repurpose existing functionality than adding new functionality.

We are using Java, TalonSRX firmware 3.1, and CTRE Phoenix Framework 5.1.3.1.

Thanks for any help!

This is one of those things that kind of got pushed to the side with the Phoenix work.

We’re hoping to put out one more feature update this season, and we’re going to try to include this feature. It was never fully tested and needs some more work before it can be included in an official release.

The preliminary version that we put up in the off-season (https://github.com/CrossTheRoadElec/HERO-DisplayBoard - again, hasn’t been fully tested) would work with the v4_Legacy software this year, but it would require not using Phoenix.

If you send us an e-mail ([email protected]) we can keep you up-to-date on the feature and possibly give you an early version (once we have it) if you felt like testing it.

If you really need something ASAP, the CANifier has the capability for driving RGB LEDs.