Ummm THIS is some INTERESTING STUFF?!?!?! Need help

[abdjwnk]

Well, I am with FIRST Team 539 and we were going through our backroom and decided we needed to get rid of some never used boxes.  I opened the boxes and WHAT A SUPRISE I found 2 NI controllers with many accompanying modules. (believed to have gotten from the engineering husband of an old teacher)

(2x) cRIO-9002 (with chassis and modules below)

4x   779003-01

4x   779005-01

1x   779006-01

1x   779010-01

4x   779011-01

1x   779012-01

1x   779013-01

1x   779334-01

I am curious to see what I can do with these?

Also, is it possible to use this for our FRC robot?

Any details available would be greatly appreciated

Thanks,

Davis

[MegaHertz]

Hi Davis,

What a cool find! I wish I'd stumbled onto two cRIO systems and 17 modules in my storeroom. Unfortunately, very little of this treasure trove will be useful for your FRC robot.

The robots must use the cRIO-FRC (the 8-slot model from previous years) or the new cRIO-FRC II (the 4-slot model releasing this season). The 9002 controllers and chassis will not work for the competition.

As for the modules, the FRC robot image only supports three module types: the NI-9201 AI module, the NI-9403 DIO module, and NI-9472 24V output module. It looks like you have one 9201 in that list (the 779013-01), so you could indeed use that with your robot to have an extra set of voltage input channels. I'm sorry to say that the other 16 modules won't be too useful for you with your FRC project.

Here's hoping you find a good use for all that hardware!

Andy H.

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

[43803490]

Thanks for the info,

Although 1 interesting question, (while understanding that it will not work for actual competition use) would it be possible to setup the cRIO so that it runs on a robot such as 1 of the FRC cRIOs?:

Thanks again,

Davis

[MegaHertz]

Hi Davis,

Sadly no. Even if you're just playing around in your workshop, the FRC Driver Station will only communicate with a CompactRIO system that's been properly imaged, and the cRIO Imaging Tool will only recognize the cRIO-FRC or new cRIO-FRC II. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news (again).

Andy H.

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

[Philbot]

Hold, on..

Surely these could be used with the generic NI Robotics Module?

You wouldn't be able to use the WPIlib code, but you could still do a host of robotic control applications, right?

Not a lot different from the Robotics Starter Kit, just more robust....

You can still bend your own driver station (see NI app notes for RSK) and do vision processing etc with the right software.

Phil.

[Kevin_F]

Hey Phil,

You could use these for everything but the FIRST game. The issue really is that the custom FPGA image we use for FIRST will not work with these controllers. But if you are just developing a side application with the NI Robotics Module everything should work fine.