That’s a very interesting question. That scenario would only work if an FMS isn’t needed at all. An FMS would completely stop that from working.
But, assuming the vlans work as expected, I can’t see a reason that wouldn’t work. Would need to be tested.
If anyone is lookin for confirmation:
When I had robot radios configured with suffixes (even with different team#'s…just any suffix), they would not connect to the field while running Cheesy Arena and the semi-official networking setup
Well that’s because cheesy arena does not allow configuring suffixes, so the networks are always just the team number.
My next question that I’m going to try and figure out.
Assuming a VH-109 Full Field Setup
The AP set’s the devices with a default gateway of 10.TE.AM.4, which is corroborated by: IP Configurations — FIRST Robotics Competition documentation
Do the AP’s running in PRACTICE mode handle routing? I’ve seen mention in some of these threads they do routing.
Is the VH-109 in PRACTICE mode going to answer to 10.TE.AM.4? Or do I need an SVI on the switch to do routing? The rest of my goals will fall in line if I figure that part out.
Edit I just realized I’m reverse engineering a FMS. Forgive me, I’m new to how the whole FIRST FMS works. The routing I was questioning is what CheesyArena adds to things automatically
I have followed the instructions from @gcschmit to configure a tp-link managed switch to a VH-109 with the practice firmware and no FMS, with two robot-side radios powered on. If I use suffixes for them (i.e. 4027-COMP and 4027-PRACTICE), I cannot get them to connect – one of them will always show a blinking SYS light and an up and down signal from the AP config dashboard. With exactly the same setup, if I give both radios unique team numbers (i.e. 4027 and 7204), they seem to work.
This will get us started, at least, but this seems to mean that both driver station and programming laptops will need to keep changing the team number back and forth when we’re eventually deploying/testing code on both robots.
Is there any way to get the suffixes working properly in this setup?
You could use and I suspect many teams will, the upper 9000 team numbers reserved for offseason/testing. I think the range starts at 9970 but don’t quote me on that.
Regarding suffixes - that’s well over my knowledge level and I’ll let others comment.
I just assigned the practice robot radio to our team number in reverse so I can remember it and it seemed to work fine. I am just confused what the value of the suffix is if it won’t work in this situation.
The suffix is to allows you have have more then one robot with the same IP scheme in the same area.
My hunch is you cannot run the practice firmware with two of the same team numbers because of overlapping DHCP scopes.
You could test this by using the Offseason firmware and setting a static IP on your DS.
We have yet to have two robots simultaneously connect to the access point. We haven’t had any trouble with one robot with a suffix connecting. We should be ready to try two robots at once early next week, and I’ll be able to confirm the behavior that you are seeing.
I’m new to the control system this year, so I’m not sure what the thought process behind having the suffix was.
My suspicion is that when you change the team number, you have to change it in (I believe):
When you are using a suffix, you only have to change it in:
So from that prospective, it’s much easier to set a suffix and undo it later.
But if you are using a FMS, the suffix won’t work. (Mainly due to having multiple Robots / Driver stations using the same IP range)