Do you think the new radio will be of high quality and sophisticated material or will it be just a fancy thing?
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I mean… the new radio has been in use by teams at some events since the 2023 offseasion and, IMO, its a huge improvement from the old radio, primarily because it is purpose built with FRC in mind. If you read the docs properly it will serve you well.
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The issues of the previous radio really had nothing to do with the materials or quality of the part (except that one thing about shorting on the plate that you fix with some tape…). Largely it was that the design wasn’t able to keep up with the adapting needs of an FRC robot and competition.
The issues that the old radio had that this new one solves are:
- Interference: The old radio used 2.4Ghz standard wifi, which is the most common wifi band and has the smallest number of channels. This means it’s too easy to get interference (think of it like a 3 lane freeway in a busy city). The new radio uses 6Ghz, which is not only less widely used (so far), but also has many more channels (now it’s a 7 lane freeway). This means there will be fewer connection issues in matches. (Whether or not it means the bandwidth limit per robot will be increased, I don’t know.)
- Wireless Tether at Comp: Because the field is using 6Ghz wifi, it means the 2.4Ghz band is available for wireless tethering at competitions because it won’t interfere with matches, rather than needing to run a network cable to your robot as it zips around the practice field.
- Ports: There’s now 4 ports on it, which means that teams that have a single outboard device (like a RPi or Limelight) don’t need a network switch as an added complication. If you have more devices and need a switch, it means one port is still dedicated to go to the Rio and that requirement will stop a lot of issues before they start.
- PoE: Now two ports can be set to send Power Over Ethernet, in order to power compatible devices. While it does make me a bit nervous that it’s passive PoE instead of active, it’s still a nice addition.
- Power: Instead of using a flimsy barrel connector that can fall out (even with zip ties and hot glue) it uses hard wired terminals for power that are more robust.
I’m sure there are others that are much more technical, but these are the major improvements that will positively impact every team.
Edit: Ok, so they use 5Ghz while on the field, but that’s a common band as well, so my point about interference stands.
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I do wish it had included mounting holes<1> – just not a fan of zipties.
<1> Ideally to line up with standard tube hole spacing (in case anyone is looking at future improvements
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Instead of using a flimsy barrel connector that can fall out (even with zip ties and hot glue)
I’ve never heard of, or seen, issues with the barrel connector, is it an issue?
Also, if possible, how are the radios with connector issues mounted?
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Really? I’ve been seeing issues with barrel connectors the entire time the old radio was in use. If you mount your radio high on your robot (as suggested), then generally your network ports and barrel connector are facing down, so gravity wants to pull it out all the time. Though even if they aren’t oriented that way, a hard hit can easily dislodge them because they’re just a weak friction fit.
Most teams have gotten around this issue by doing two things:
- Hot Glue and Zip Ties
- Dual Power Input: by powering the old radio with both the barrel connector as well as through the PoE port, you can hopefully mitigate either port having momentary disconnections and forcing your radio to reboot midmatch.
Barrel connectors absolutely suck in FRC, they just cannot stand up to the impacts we see with the motors these days. It’s also one of the main reasons that teams who use network switches on their robot use Brainbox devices instead of an off the shelf netgear switch. Brainbox switches don’t use barrel connectors for power.
I’m incredibly glad barrel connectors aren’t used on the new radio. The only have a place among stationary consumer electronics, not among robots.
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I don’t know if this will be unpopular but with how many cameras teams are putting on their robots, I feel like the other ports on the new radio aren’t as important if people are putting switches on their robot anyway. I would have taken a dumbed down version with 2 ports and power for $50 (and said mounting holes)
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I completely agree that barrel connectors suck, I’ve just never seen or heard of it being an issue, guess the thought never occured.
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Functionally, the new radio itself has been great. The handful of events we ran it at (Worlds and in Off-season) it was rock solid and seemed to significantly reduce the number of field connectivity issues we saw prior to and during matches (not just our robot, but overall).
My only real complaint has been the mounting solution (or lack thereof) and that they strongly recommend you mount it to metal for cooling (which is further complicated by the aforementioned mounting problems).
I seem to recall there was also some problem you could run into if you used the Aux Ports for POE Limelight power depending on the input voltage you supplied the radio (we opted to play it safe and just stick with our network switch and POE injector cable solution instead).
Two-sided thermal tape is a good option. I would prefer it with bolts rather than with zipties, but that’s where we are …
How many cameras some teams are putting on ther robots.
With Limelights you can run two without a switch now and with PV you can easily have a 4 or even 6 cam vision system without needing a switch. Imho it removes what can be a significant wireing footgun for a lot of teams and a potential point of failure. For teams that need more, we can use a switch, but the VAST majority of teams will never need to.
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we used 3 limelights (2 for tags and 1 for object tracking). With the rio plugged there is no room to tether. Also, the radio needs to be generally up higher on the robot and running 4 ethernet cables and power cables, the wires get congested (I like being able to bury the switch). Having 3 limelights isn’t as unusual from what I’ve seen at comps.
We just had our first off season event (Tidal Tumble) using the new radio, and they allowed teams to use the 2.4 Ghz wireless tether on the practice field.
My one gripe, which is software, so should be easily patchable, is that in order to 2.4 Ghz tether, you need to note what your wifi password is when flashing your radio, and the screen that shows it is only up for like 3 seconds.
At TT, after flashing and not knowing our tether SSID password, I went into the web gui for our radio, and it has a box for setting your 2.4 Ghz password, but it also requires you to put in a 6 Ghz password as well in order to press the submit button. I set both to the same thing, and then we could connect in order to tether, yay!
Well doing that jacked up our connection to the FMS system, and we had to get it reflashed while the robot was on the field. Awkward… So it would be nice if that process was easier and less prone to breaking your connection to FMS accidentally.
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I mean, the nunber of teams I saw that needed more then two coprocs was relatively small, but thats purely anecdotal.
My point was simply that for the good portion of teams who didnt need more then two coprocs (who are, in my experience a majority) it means less footguns and points of failure for them to deal with. And for the teams that need it you were going to have to use a network switch anyway and that one extra unused port on the radio is the least of your concerns cost wise (comeing from a team that ran a 5 cam vision system)
Prior to this new radio most teams used a switch to connect their Limelights. Think about how many teams ran LL then. So it’s something they are already accustomed to running back to like 2016.
Sample size of one robot, but I feel that High Quality, Sophisticated, and Fancy are all great words for new radio.
That being said, a quick 2-way google translate journey later:
Critically “Flashy” in this context would imply it looks good, but has no real value. Which isn’t something I’ve seen yet.
I helped several teams at CATT use the new radio to eliminate switches, including one team whose switch was physically pulverized.
Apart from this problem, I was called in for several cases where teams were losing contact with their roboRIO (but not the radio) on the field. When these communication breaks are for <10s, this indicates either a problem with the Ethernet cables between the roboRIO and the radio, or problems with an intervening Ethernet switch[1].
In particular, multiple teams had neglected to comply with TT6:
[TT6] R703 is revised to remove the option to have a network switch between the roboRIO and robot radio: The roboRIO Ethernet port must be directly connected to the “RIO” port on the VH-109 robot radio, except to allow for PoE injection. Rationale: Eliminate a common point of failure for robot communications.
While these are commonly power problems, a lot of teams this season have experienced transitory problems with Ethernet switches (and other devices) when shooting notes, likely because of static electricity discharge. ↩︎
I’ve seen bent steel bars. If those bend nothing is safe, even a $180 radio /js
/javascript? I haven’t seen that tone indicator before what does it mean?
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“just saying” in a light tone
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