New Ctrl Sys Early Ship - Benchtop Test

Technical Control System
#1

Hi -
We received our early shipment of the new control system today…just like Christmas a month early for the team!

We ran through the benchtop test procedure this afternoon, and all worked fine except for Auton mode - following the steps in the benchtop test doc, nothing happened when we enabled Auton mode. This is with the out-of-the-box firmware, image, etc on the cRIO and DS.

Has anyone else run into a similar problem? Trying to determine if this indicates a hardware defect (and we have to get a replacement from FIRST) or simply a problem with the default code that ships on the controller…

Thanks,
Ron

Team 2607 - Programming Mentor

#2

Ours didn’t follow the bench test expected outputs in all cases either.
I don’t yet know if that’s a real problem or an OTB version issue though.
We saw two discrepancies. One joystick didn’t behave during teleop, and the first time we tried Auto nothing happened, but it did run for two seconds when we retried it.

We haven’t dropped our own test program in yet to run a full verifiable test.
That’s tomorrow for us.

#3

If everything worked up to that point and you’re feeling lucky, I would just move on to flashing the DS and cRIO, then trying your own autonomous code. If that works, you should be just fine.

#4

Mark,

Our system behaved just as yours did out of the box. Once the software updates are downloaded to both cRio and DS, everything seemed to work well.

#5

Quick question.

Did auton run once & then not again?

#6

No, the OTB auton didn’t even run once. Tried it multiple times (rebooting both DS and cRIO) and even hooked up two Jaguars instead of Victors in case it was an “operable range” issue, to no avail.

The Jaguars are nice, btw. Control seems to be much smoother and a much wider operable range.

Thanks,
Ron

Team 2607 - Programming Mentor

#7

I don’t believe that the autonomous code uses the motors at all. It simply strobes the solenoid module outputs something like a certain black car on TV.

Greg McKaskle

#8

Is there a software update for the cRio? If so, where is it located?

Thanks!

#9

2009 Control System page at http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=10934
Under Software Updates

#10

http://www.usfirst.org/frccontrolsystem is easier to remember. :slight_smile:

#11

I see an update for the Driver Station, for LabView, and for WPILib. I do not see one for the cRio. Is it included in the LabView update?

My team has this exact problem:


But none of the posts on the above thread (nor the one that it links to on the beta forums) are any help.

#12

I think the cRIO update is found on the NI website:
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/1162/lang/en

#13

Yes - the whole update process is a little confusing. If you piece together the various instructions found in various places all in the right order, you *might * get it right…

Here’s what I figured out by reading everything very carefully before doing anything, and my system is working now, so I think I got it right…:rolleyes:

Before updating the cRIO firmware, you need to do the LabView update (this fact is only mentioned on the WPI site where you get the C++ update… go figure)

After you have done the LabView update, you will have an icon on your Windows Desktop that says “FRC cRIO Imaging Tool”. Once you have that, you can start the cRIO updating process that is documented in section 5.1.2 (the Configuration chapter, not the Software Installation chapter, and not section 5.2.2 as mentioned in section 1.6.5 (5.2.2 doesn’t exist!))

When you do the cRIO imaging, I found it easiest to connect the PC directly to the cRIO using the orange crossover cable provided in the kit (although you can also follow the directions and use the Driver Station as a LAN switch). If this is the first time you are updating the cRIO, make sure you set the IP on your computer to the static address 10.0.0.6, with a subnet of 255.0.0.0. (For subsequent updates, you will use the IP address with the team number embedded).

Then instead of following the menu path detailed in section 5.1.2.4.1, I just clicked on the above mentioned Desktop icon, and everything went smoothly from there.

Also - Please note that for the latest C++ software update found on the WPI site (Beta update 5), they say that you must reimage the cRIO before you install it, which directly contradicts the steps outlined in sections 1.6.4 and 1.6.5.

YMMV, but good luck anyway :slight_smile:

#14

Is anyone currently doing this with 2 nics in a computer so you don’t lose net connectivity when you connect to the Crio?

Is there an option to select which network adapter Labview should be using, if you do have 2 nics in a computer?

#15

P.S. Is it possible that you’re thinking of the new software patch in FRCLabVIEWUpdate1.0, rather than the OTB?
That does cause a chase light sequence on the solenoid LEDs in autonomous.

[strike]Then I think it’s possible that at least two versions of the OTB shipped.

  1. Autonomously strobe the solenoid lights[/strike]
  2. Autonomously work somewhat in accordance with the bench test description

We evidently got version 2, because there was no indicator light strobing, but autonomous did drive the pwm outputs several different ways.
With our version when the DS was booted into autonomous we saw one of these three different autonomous behaviors occur randomly intermixed.

  1. pwm 2 goes full forward effectively forever all by it’s lonesome self
  2. Nothing happens and joystick 1 still controls the motors as in arcade teleop
    *]pwm1-4 go full forward for 2 seconds
    I’m just trying to figure out what to tell people at the local workshops.
#16

Depending on how your computer is set up, it should be able to handle this automatically based on the routing table, not having to bother Labview with the details at all.

For those who have no real idea what I’m talking about, basically, your computer keeps track of which gateway(normally, a server at your ISP, or your own router if you are using one) is the quickest route to get to any particular address. Normally, it’s as simple as 192.168.0.anything is considered your local network, and can directly connect from one computer to the other, and everything else is an outside network that goes through your gateway. Your computer should be able to figure out that 10.anything can be accessed through the second NIC.

#17

I suggest you tell them that there’s a good reason for the software updates (i.e. the OTB code doesn’t work exactly as desired) and that they shouldn’t worry too much if the behavior before an update doesn’t match the expected results perfectly.

#18

Sorry, my description was of what they are calling the default code for an installed image, not the OTB code. I don’t have access to the code for OTB, so I can’t tell you what it was supposed to do, but your description sounds familiar.

There were not two versions. OTB was what was burned onto the controllers at the factory. Default is what you’ll have after a cRIO image update.

Greg McKaskle

#19

You’re just dedicated and overworked.

Take the day off, go eat some turkey and wait the parades.

You deserve it.

Thank you

#20

We received our kit yesterday… tried bench test last night.

I was wondering if anyone had a problem with tank drive vs arcade drive.
We could never seem to get tank drive (teleop and enabled)…no matter what we did we got arcade drive.

Is this an artifact of using the out of box software?

Anyone else see this happen?

Happy Thanksgiving…