We’re currently in the process of buying materials for a practice chassis, but we’re a small 3rd year team extremely low on resources (read: money) and I was wondering if theoretically a different router would suffice. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but it’s possible that after this year’s happenings FIRST could switch hardware and we’d have dumped nearly $100 on a dead standard. We already have one working D-link on last year’s robot but we’d prefer not to cannibalize if we don’t have to. Is it possible?
Any AP router/switch will do IF it’s compatible with the wireless capabilities of your Driver Station laptop, e.g., 2.4GHz 802.11a/b/g (generally, laptops aren’t N compatible). Just make sure you feed it the proper power (5v or 12v) while on the robot.
Some of the ones you linked to won’t work. One isn’t wireless (not an AP), another only supports 802.11n. The middle one looks like it might work (2.4GHz, 802.11n/b/g).
Ask around for old home wireless routers that aren’t being used anymore. That’s what we usually put on the older/practice robots.
Hah, yea, I was looking it up at 1 in the morning so I didn’t notice the “cabled router” part. All of our laptops should be N-capable and in any case most N routers have backward compatibility with G, etc in the settings. Thanks.