If this problem has already come up, sorry for posting, I couldn’t find it.
We powered up our electrical system today and the first thing I saw on the RC was the Program LED flash between red and green very rapidly, and the RC mode LED go steady orange(meaning we are disabled). I tried resetting it, but to no avail.
We were, however, able to get the RC into programming mode and load up some test programs. They loaded fine and everything worked for about 5 to 10 min, before the RC would go back the original state described above.
On one occassion, a few seconds after a fresh program was loaded, the RC went back to the non-functioning state. All the wires were connected correctly, nothing, nothing was shorting anywhere.
Though I have been drilling holes with the components in place, I took great care in not getting any metal shavings anywhere where it can short a circuit.
Have you uploaded the new master code? You could try that, or you could go through the RC hardware reset procedure (it involves holding both the RESET and PROG buttons in some convoluted manner, don’t remember exactly how - do a search or something)
Neither of these are custom-tailored to your problem, but hopefully will help anyways
We have this same problem at times… it seems to go away depending on what is commented out of the code… I’m guessing it may have something to do with the serial drivers and printf, but I can’t prove it. Good luck.
I bet you got a team that builds an orange rolls it on the field but scrambles everyones signal. Or you drilled the compnents while watching for shavings you drilled into something check it out.
I am assuming you have built the competition port adapter so that you can run and test auto, etc. Have you checked for bad connections there? Cold solder joints exhibit this kind of intermittant failure. There is also the possibility that some rough handling may have broke one or more of the d connectors on either the RC or OI. This damage is not obvious from the top side. In any event, contact IFI today to get some direction as to operation or failure and replacement.
Nothing displayed but you do want to build one of these… http://www.ifirobotics.com/docs/competition-port-pinout-guide-reva.pdf
If you have made one and that seems to be the problem, then you may have shorted a pin when you assembled it. One thing I just though of, (but I think it is mentioned above.) have you tried replacing the modem cable with a new and shorter one? Over the years, teams have had trouble with the modem serial cable just going bad. They get run over and stepped on and the cable is damaged internally. Remember, besides running data the cable is also trying to supply power to the radio. BTW, the RC modem does need to be mounted so that the antenna is not against metal or buried deep inside the robot.
hehe - convoluted. Place your thumb under your forefinger, you index over your pinky and try to hit the buttons with you elbow. Or nose.
More importantly: It almost sounds as if the stored programs are getting corrupted as the robot is running. Is it at all possible that a strong magnetic field is messing with your memory? it’s a strech at best, but that’s all I could come up with.
Al - the link I gave poinited to another post with our exact problem. We tried to fix the code according to what was posted, but to no avail.
Another thing interesting about this problem is that it only happens with certain versions of the code. The default code doesn’t do it and neither does the code of 3 of the 4 programmers on the team. It only happens when the head programmer puts in his code, which happens to the master code, complied from all the programmers. So I definitely think this is a code problem, but I’m reluctant to send it in for replacement under the warranty, because these last few days are crucial for testing and we need our RC.
ok to test to see if the code is the problem try using it in the 2004 robot - the most that can happen is that the robot reacts crazy. that way you can determine if its the RC or the Coding.
if the regional is close to the ship date and the RC is the one causing the problem what you can do is send the old one out and see if IFI can ship the new one to the regional location with all the other spare controllers or borrow one when you get to the regional.
This may sound negative but its one of the many solutions you have left amongst many other options.
I think I’ve solved the problem anyways. If this is the case, I will post when I get to test the robot tomorrow.
<edit> The problem seems to have been solved for now. It was a stray printf that was being called before Initialize_Serial_Comms() was called. Hope that helps anybody else with the issue.</edit>
