No PMW output in Autonomous

Technical Programming
1

I’m having a problem communicating with the motors in Autonomous Mode. The motors work fine in the Default_Routine. When the RC is in Autonomous (the RC mode light is blinking yellow), the indicator LED’s on the Victor 884’s blink yellow, meaning there is no PWM input to them. In the Autonomous code, I’ve got the pwm variables assigned like I want them right before the Putdata(&txdata) statement, but the information is apparently not being output.

Is there some trick to driving motors in Autonomous? Or is my system configured incorrectly? The RC is disconnected from the OI (no tether), after the team number was set to 0000. That should work, shouldn’t it, or do you have to have a competition dongle?

Thanks in advance for any advice

Russell Clothier, Team 1723

2

You need a dongle, ( You mean the competition port switch…right?) to run autonomous.

See… switch 2

Um… you DO have the radio link up…? Without a radio link or thether, the robot won’t do anything, it’s a safety setup.

Steve (Or are you talking about something else and I’m just being stupid?

(An after thought) if you’re using PWN13-16… your statements should be before the Generate PWMs

3

Not true. The setup that Russell is describing (tether, set team number to 0000, untether) is another way to set the RC into autonomous mode. (Steve, see page 10 of the RC reference guide.)

4

From the IFI Operator Interface reference manual:

Starting with the 2006 Robot Controller, a team number of
zero will put the Robot Controller in Autonomous Mode, but the PWM outputs will be disabled.

5

OOPS… you are correct but it’s almost a moot point since as D235J pointed out… the PWMs are disabled. (I just assumed it was true since things I’ve wanted to test in autonomous always involved PWMs.) I’m not sure I understand their logic in this since it IS going to lead to some confusion but hey OK… I can live with that. I guess I overstated my case but the bottom line is you still need to connect pin 8 to pin 5 to get the full autonomous to work. I need to re-read all the documentation… just as soon as the build is over and I recover from my customary collapse.

Thanks for the catch d235j.

Steve

6

I’ll be darned. Not sure why you’d want the option of going into autonomous with all of your motors disabled, but that certainly explains my problem. Thanks!

7

My take on this is that it’s a safety measure. With team number set to 0, no tether, and no radio link, there’s no way to stop an ill-behaved (or polite, for that matter) robot other than chase it and turn off power somehow. And, as soon as the program is downloaded, it’ll take off, with the program cable still attached.