cRIO imaging problem

[DAQjr]

joel.castillo wrote:

PS: Here is proof that after the manual "imaging" the Imaging Tool gets to "see" the version installed, but fails again to format the controller giving us the same mistake. The tool even sees the modules instaled properly.

After doing this, have you tried changing a setting that doesn't require a reformat, such as selecting a different language or selecting a CAN driver plug-in?  Does that part of the imaging tool work?

[pgriessler]

You need to use a cross-over cable with a direct labtop to cRIO connection.

When you use your router "in-between" with direct connection to your labtop and cRIO and patch cables, the router does the signal translation.

Remember: Do NOT reformat your cRIO over wireless.

[MichaelCoss]

This is not true.  A cros over cable is required only if the ethernet card can not autosense the recieve and transmit lines.  The feature, Auto-MDIX, was developed to eliminate the need for cross over cables.  Most modern NICs support this feature.  If I remember correctly, on the 8 port cRIO, one of the ethernet port can autosense, and the other cannot and I believe that on the 4 port cRIO, the single ethernet port can autosense.

And, while it may not be recommended, formatting over wireless works just fine.  I've done it many times,  As far as I can tell, it is just a matter of how quickly the link can be reestablished.  We connect to our robot similar to a field configuration with the DLINK in bridge mode, and a 4 port ethernet/wireless router set to the correct SSID on the wireless side, and can be set as a DHCP server and can provide addesses on the 10.x.y network.  I connect to the rotuer wirelessly or via a ethernet cable, and access the cRIO this way, and using either method have successfully formatted the cRIO.

[techdude]

I'm glad to hear that formatting over wireless has worked for you, but my guess based on the recommendation to not use wireless is that the formatting process uses either a real time formatting process or possibly even a UDP connection. This means that in a normal world, it will work fine, but if you have any interference (microwave, motor, cordless telephone, etc.), it will be read as data, and it could corrupt the image.

This is based on my experience flashing routers.  If you use a cable, it will work fine every time, but using wireless will work ok until that one time that the phone rang and then you are left with a bricked router and the option of buying a new one or soldering on a serial cable. What fun!

I would appreciate it if one of the OPs would give insight into this problem and why we shouldn't use wireless, because I am curious about this too.  'Till then, it's back to crossover!

--

techdude

[tewing]

Just thought I'd add something that we found.  We had a similar timeout error. and tried all the things mentioned in the posts here without much luck.  We finally discovered that the ground wire on the CRIO was loose and not reliably connected.  Once we secured it, all our problems went away.  Very tricky to find, as the CRIO was somewhat alive and communicating!

FIRST FRC Team 1619 - Up- A-Creek Robotics