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FIRST 2022 Championship Update

FIRST 2022 Championship Update

Published by CTR Electronics Team on 19th Apr 2022

Hello teams!

Here’s a few updates before this week’s World Championship event.

FIRST 2022 World Championship 

CTRE staff will be available at the Robot Service Center during the World Championship. 

Come swing by and say hello!

CTR Motor Controller Firmware Update 22.1.0.0

At the end of last week, a functional limitation was discovered in our motor controller firmware. During motion magic control mode, under specific circumstances, the target set point may move away from the target requested via API.
This issue requires every condition below to reproduce:

  • Must be using Motion Magic AND
  • Must configure S-Curve to non-zero value AND
  • Must be changing set point frequently (back and forth repeatability) AND
  • Set point changes must exceed 16 bits.

A total of two teams have reported it for the entire season, suggesting that it is a fairly rare issue. Regardless a fix has been published.

The optional firmware update is available through the 5.21.2.1 release available on our Releases Repo, which includes the patched firmware for the following devices:

  • Victor SPX
  • Talon SRX
  • TalonFX / Falcon 500

The details can be found in the corresponding errata entry.

CANivore + USB Camera

During the Houston FIRST State Championship, we encountered an instance where the roboRIO USB host port would disable itself until roboRIO is powered cycled. This issue would cause the following conditions:

  • Attached USB Camera no longer functioned
  • CANivore would slow double-blink red on STATUS
  • USB 5V is no longer present.

Cycling the USB peripherals did not recover the USB host port. Power cycling the roboRIO did restore USB Host functionality. Based on testing with the team, it appears the issue only occurs if a CANivore and a USB Camera are both directly connected to the roboRIO.

CTR-Electronics and National Instruments are working together to determine root cause.

However if this is seen in competition, we recommend removing the USB Camera if it does not serve a critical role in your robot application.

CANcoder: Pre-Soldered with Leads

Customers have asked if we can sell CANcoders with wired leads already soldered in. These are available on the CANcoder product page. Be sure to select “Wired” if you want leads already installed in the device.

HERO .NET Micro Framework Update

We’ve recently updated the HERO .NET Micro Framework to include CANdle support, so now you can control CANdles from your HEROs!  This is also part of the Phoenix v5.21.2.1 release.

Preliminary support for CANivore NanoFramework

The first milestone has been achieved with supporting NanoFramework through the CANivore's ESP32.  An example has been posted demonstrating basic CAN frame transmission.  This initial release also supports nearly everything base NanoFramework supports, including Wi-Fi, and line-step debugging.  As development continues, more features will be added to the ESP32 co-processor.

For the teams participating at this week's event, Good luck!