with the truck arriving in possibly four hours, we have hit a standstill.
late last night, in the midst of testing code [which did work! yayyy!] we got the error message no comm. that's happened before, and usually you just wait it out and then it's fine. but this time, it was not fine. upon further inspection, we discovered that the cRIO had no lit LEDs. checking voltage across the board, it was 24V at the input [correct] and 24V on the other end. but the thing just won't work. there's nothing we can do about - after scouring the forums, chief delphi, etc, we determined the only thing we can do is call NI, talk with them, and get a replacement. similar problems have occurs, resulting from a blown fuse within the cRIO (!)
the good news is that we do not have to ship the robot with the control system - so we'll call NI in a couple hours, and unless it's a quick fix, take off the control system and ship dear sadie off to svr.
i'm really relieved that we do in fact know the code works. there's nothing we can control at this point.
other "updates" that feel like ages ago
servo failed miserably at gating the orbit balls - after various reinforcements, we decided to use a globe motor. god bless jimmy and his motor-mount-making-magic. the plate extending from the motor still needs to be larger, but the globe is wayyyy better than the servo. we were able to suck spin and dump balls successfully last night. before the damn thing decided to break.
i have faith that somehow, things will work out. it's not likely that we'll get a functioning cRIO within the next five hours, but at least our first competition is a half hour away this year. we'll make it work.
thank you so much to everyone - we've had amazing support this year. when we are getting waffles made for us in the middle of the night, and mentors rush back to castilleja for programming "crises" that turn out to be us being done? we know we're well taken care of.
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