Questions about REV Hardware Client

Technical Control System
1

In the past couple of years, my team has migrated from a CIM/MiniCIM drivetrain to a NEO drivetrain. As the programming mentor, I find myself often comparing the CTRE Phoenix Tuner to the REV Hardware Client, and as such it has sparked (no pun intended) a few questions.

  1. Is there currently any capability to update the CAN ID and other settings of the SparkMAX controllers wirelessly? That is one of my favorite features of the Phoenix Tuner, as long as I am connected to the RoboRIO I can edit the CAN ID and update firmware on VictorSPX and TalonSRX controllers.

  2. In my testing, I seem to have found that in order for a SparkMAX to connect over USB, it needs to have external power (ie. from the PDP). Is this actually the case, or perhaps I have done something wrong while testing.

  3. If #2 is true, then does anyone have any good tips for connecting to a SparkMAX that is on a robot? If the robot is on, the SparkMAX is then being used by the RoboRIO for CAN, making it not connect to the Hardware Client. I feel that I am going wrong somewhere, but I’m not sure where.

Any help is appreciated! Thanks y’all!

2

Just connecting via USB.

No need to power the SparkMax that the USB is directly connected to. Do have to power others along the CAN chain if you want to see them at the same time.

3

When connected to CAN the REV hardware client should still see the Spark MAXes and be able to adjust settings, it just won’t be able to enable the controller.

4

As others stated, you don’t need to power the sparks with anything else except USB to configure them. We don’t currently support wireless configuration of our devices, but any USB connection on any REV device on your CAN bus will allow you to bridge into the whole network and you can update anything on the bus through a single USB.

If you are having problems (as referenced above in 2.) Please email us and we can work through the issues [email protected]

1 Like
5

Thank you all so much for your help!

6

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