RiSE Platform Status

Latest News (09/13/05)

• The center RMC has been replaced. The RiSE platform is operational. (-- SalomonTrujillo - 13 Sep 2005)
• The center RMC is broken. By switching the rear and center RMCs, the center legs behave properly and the rear legs fail during calibration. (-- SalomonTrujillo - 09 Sep 2005)
• A mechanical problem. It appears that the one of the motors for a middle leg has too much play in it. The bearing may be shot. This may have been causing some of the problems noted below. (Update: this play does not seem to be causing the problems)
• Issues with Right Middle leg (-- SalomonTrujillo - 08 Sep 2005)
  • After accidentally breaking and fixing the black power cable that runs from battery to center RMC, the right middle leg began to misbehave.
  • The middle leg will jitter as it is being calibrated. Sometimes it will suddenly move to one extreme in the wing DOF.
  • Usually, the Calibration module will read as okay (even though the leg is clearly not in the correct position.)
  • The redone battery connection has been checked for a bad connection. A multimeter reads at most 0.3 ohms, usually 0.0 ohms. We have not ruled out the possiblity of an intermittent connection.
  • BadRiSECalibration.avi
• More power options for running the robot longer (08/26/05)
  • Additional battery pack from CMU (08/24/05)
  • Two 12V, 12AH batteries for tethered operation (08/18/05)
    • NOTE: DO NOT run at +24V (ie. using BOTH 12V batts).
      • All circuits are not protected for over 25V, so avoid potential problems
    • Run at 12V with reduced performance (benchtop), or get add'l 6V battery for 18V performance gain (or use designed battery packs)
    • Approx 7ft testing tether and 2ft benchtop tether have been made to power the robot
• The power switch (big red ON/OFF toggle on tail) wiring was redone (08/11/05)
  • One side of the switch wiring was weak and giving intermittant connection (now the BLACK heatshrink side)
  • This may have been part of the previous weeks problems that seemed to center around the power cycle of RiSEBus during bootup
• The supervisor is crashing after finding carrier board ver.1 in program execution (~08/04/05)
  • Sal has identified this as around the time that the RiSEBus are power cycled
  • Debugging w/help from CMU and BDI continues
  • Terminal message:

     RiSEBus: Carrier V1 found!

Next steps

• Testing and more testing!!!

History (reverse chronological order)

• The blue wire on the Hall effect crank sensor of the right middle leg broke (08/01/05)
  • The coverings (tape, heat shrink, etc) were removed, and the wire was reconnected/repaired
• The front wire tether safety cable was replaced due to normal use damage (08/01/05)
• The new LSANs are configured for RiSE v1.2 platform (ie. they have DataMate(?-larger) connectors) (08/01/05)
  • We need to make new cables with JST connectors
• The replacement robot platform has arrived (07/19/05)
  • It seems to behave much better than the previous robot (no comm. sync errors yet)
  • The wireless bridge was reconfigure to recognize and work with our lab environment
    • Set the MAC addresses (new carrier NIC and wireless bridge) in router
    • Set the IP on wireless bridge
  • The monitor cable is working fine
  • A replacement battery seems to work fine (we have 3 working batteries again!)
• The new LSANs and IMUs arrived (07/19/05)
  • We now have enough LSANs & accels for all legs
• The robot platform has been sent to BDI for replacement (07/14/05)
  • The former CMU robot (at CMU) seems to work fairly reliably
  • Two black wires on the monitor cable connector broke and were quickly soldered back (hopefully correct placement)
• A 12V DC mini-fan was added to the heatsink (07/07/05)
  • Radio Shack part #273-240, recommended by Hal @ UPenn
  • The fan seems to eliminate the 'bus sync' errors, leading to the conclusion that CPU freezes were primarily thermally related
  • Wood screws were used to lightly attached fan to the heatsink
• Another O-ring was added to carrier board mounting (2 total) (07/01/05)
  • Per Jon Amory's suggestion
  • No noticeable difference - Intended to improve CPU freezes/bus sync issues
• 4mm standoffs and O-ring rubber spacers were added to CPU mounting to carrier board (06/29/05)
  • Compliments of Jon Amory @ BDI
  • No noticeable difference - Intended to improve CPU freezes/bus sync issues
• The robot has been configured to work wirelessly also! (03/28/05)
  • Had to configure the wireless servers on both on the robot and in the lab
  • See StanfordWirelessConfig for more details
• The laptop (LORDVADER) has been configured to work wirelessly, finally! (03/26/05)
  • Finally figured out how to properly use Madwifi drivers for the DWL-G650 card
  • Used Wireless Tools to configure the wireless settings for the lab
• Robot is safely back from SwRI (03/21/05)
  • Quick-boot CF card was installed @ SwRI (20 sec vs 100sec bootup)
  • Network settings have been changed to work properly @ SU
  • CF cable was replaced @ SwRI
  • Wireless adapter was added @ SwRI
• The CF board IDE ribbon cable was replaced with a new (03/02/05)
  • This was made using 1mm, 44wire ribbon cable and matching connectors (03/02/05)
  • DigiKey Part#ASA44K-ND & #WM15-X-ND (or similar)
• Communications issues remain periodic, so just pay attention
• The platform walked and turned across the floor (03/01/05)
• The yellow wire for RiSEBus #2 was taped out of the way to not interfere with the rear right motor gears (03/01/05)
• Uploaded the newly compiled supervisor (02/28/05)
• The carrier board returned to SU (02/28/05)
  • Debugged the carrier board
  • The CF IDE cable seems flaky
    • The cable was taped to prevent damage from heatsink
    • Solder was added to pins #3 & #25 (on carrier board) to have better connection between ribbon connector and board (some lines were not always continous)
• The power regulator board was reconnected to the platform power switch circuit (02/28/05)
• Recompiled supervisor on bassoon@CMU w/correct variables settings (02/25/05)
  • Change the .profile variables
    • Specifically, export RISE_HARDWARE=_RISEBUS_CARRIER_
• The CPU carrier board is being shipped from BDI to SU for Fri 2/25 arrival (02/24/05)
  • Don checked board for operation
    • The supervisor isn't working
    • May need to adjust some variables for risebus
  • Probably need to add CPU heatsink upon arrival
• The 2nd power regulation board has been repaired (02/23/05)
  • DigiKey part #PT6651P-ND was replaced on the board
  • Clean 5V and 3.3V supply again
• Shipped the CPU carrier board to BDI for inspection/replacement (02/23/05)
  • Don has identified the CPU module as being damaged
  • Al will send replacement CPU module to BDI, then BDI will test/return board to SU
• Telecon w/BDI (Aaron & Don) to discuss path forward (02/22/05)
• Received replacement board, which suffered the same fate (as below) when attached w/battery and CPU carrier. It was working fine prior (5V, 3.3V), so the CPU carrier is the culprit (02/18/05)
• Tested CPU carrier for bootup (02/18/05)
  • Did not boot, and seemed to have 3.3V to GND short somewhere (reached 2A current limit on power supply w/o holding 3.3V)
• The power regulator board (white heat-shrunk package in rear) seems to be malfunctioning (02/17/05)
  • 5V output is fine, but 3.3V output is over 10V, depending on current limit set on external power supply (15V @ <0.5A for safety)
  • Send malfunctioning board to Don, he is sending us a replacement board
• Getting repeated errors after starting supervisor: (02/15/05)
  • Don @ BDI suggested trying the RESET button betweenn the VGA & keyboard connectors
    • Caused by a loss of synchronization between the CPU and the RiSEBus bridges
  • The top main board was uninstalled and all connectioned were reseated (between CPU & main board and between main board and 3 RMCs below)

RiSEBusDriver : Bus 0 Failed to collect node 1 info!!!
RiSEBusDriver : Bus 1 Failed to collect node 1 info!!!
RiSEBusDriver : Bus 2 Failed to collect node 1 info!!!
RiSEBusDriver : Bus 3 Failed to collect node 1 info!!!

• The supervisor on the platform has been updated (02/15/05)
• The OCU (laptop) code has been updated/compiled (02/15/05)
• The CF card and the white flashy packet were taped to body to secure them (02/15/05)
• Battery #10 & #11 seem to charge fine (end up around 16.5V) (02/15/05)
• Battery #12 has no effect when plugged into charger (bad charge connection?)
• Needed to log onto QNX machine at CMU to compile latest supervisor code (02/15/05)
  • Needed passwd to be reset on BASSOON @ CMU
  • Remember legs are better....
• Needed to download compiled code to robot (02/15/05)

-- AMcClung? - 16 Feb 2005